


John Bulton: Ordinary Special Snowflake

by Mimiga



Category: Poppy O'Possum (Webcomic)
Genre: A poor attempt at mystery at that, Gen, Look kid I don't make the rules, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimiga/pseuds/Mimiga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your parents are rich, your attitude is mildly disruptive, and you've got snarky little thoughts floating around in your head as a constant. It cannot be denied you're a moody teenager with self-image issues and a hankering for trouble, but that makes you kind of stereotypical doesn't it? With that subtle glint of a lucky star you're even more unique than anyone can realize! You can sneeze bits of silver and have moderate sinus complications!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Bulton: Ordinary Special Snowflake

Midday 

The distant peaks of far off mountains trailed downward and faded into a fluffy bank of fog which gripped the valley below. Barely noticeably in the foreground of the window were streaks of rain dragged diagonal from the wind and movement of the train. Ever since we entered the range about an hour ago there has been a nasty front that got caught in between ridges and sullied the sharp grandeur with blur and grey. Frankly the view would be a lot better without all this thick humidity, it was even beginning to fog up the window. 

I grabbed the mouth of my sleeves and wiped away the condensation, my eyes changing perspective to notice my reflection in the cleared glass. A dreary black pitbull dully met my gaze and copied my squint. I followed the contours of my face and directions of fur to ensure there wasn't a tuft out of place, the glint beside my pupils caught my attention. The two unmistakable marks of a lucky star were still present as they always have been. 

With how few people had them and how many ways they could manifest themselves, just having one alone was enough to make you unique. Any kind of far-fetched ability, talent, or power you could imagine; there was likely a lucky star for it. Some were conductive powers that could translate magic into different energies which you could control. Some were perceptive powers that could modify your senses or give you new ones outright, there were even ones that just gave you social prowess or stupidly specific abilities. When I look at my own, it reminds me that a huge portion of powers can end up absolutely... benign. 

It's natural to assume someone is much more interesting than they are when they're born with something called Silver Rush. What people immediately think to do is compare it to actually competent abilities and assume I can animate elementals out of silver or something cool like that. I can sympathize with other people who pulled short straws because the conversations are probably similar every time they come up, us explaining why our lucky star isn't anything particularly exciting or special. All I could ever do was sneeze little flecks of silver, maybe be able to squish and mold bigger pieces just a little bit. My dad even bought me a silver ring so that I could learn how better to use my power and still the most I could do was make it kinda oblong. 

I looked to my palm and realized I was doing just that absentmindedly, at some point I pulled it off my finger and began to play with it like hardening clay. The metal was twisted slightly from my touch and the shape already elongated into an oval. A groan caught in my throat as I molded it back to the general assumption of what the original shape was and slid it back on, that really was the best I could do besides make glittery tissues when I was sick. That kind of thing made small talk with the other nobles my mom brings over truly awkward and disappointing. Maybe my parents were also silently disappointed that their son lost the mystic power lottery for something mundane? 

My callous thoughts were dashed as my younger brother noisily entered the cabin without so much as a knock, all the tan splotches which covered him inherited right from dad. He took a look at me and snickered. 

"Wow, seriously?" Jack pined. "You're still sitting around doing nothing? Way to waste mom's money." He turned to rummage in his bag which was thrown carelessly onto his cot the moment we first entered the room hours ago. 

"I already told them plenty of times I didn't want to go, and yet they still dragged me along anyway. If they'd have just listened to me then I wouldn't need to be in here staying bored." I shot back irritably, sitting up from the deep recline I was in previously. He continued to unzip and search through pockets until he withdrew his camera from the mess. 

"It's not my job to tell you how to waste your summer vacation, but mom and dad seemed to think you were wasting it too much. They even bought tickets to a traditional train countryside tour for all of us so that you wouldn't keep sitting in your room doing nothing all day, now you're just sitting in a different room and doing the same thing." Before I could form a retort he left the cabin, closing the door behind him and leaving me to fume by myself. 

He was barely in middle school and thought he could automatically know why they bought tickets to this money trap. The kid could barely do a report and he's already a know-it-all. It was more likely that mom bought the tickets to spite me, putting me in the same space as a hundred more stuffy rich people who want to pry into my business. 

...I'd only get this mad if he were right. As terrible as it felt to try and force sociability, mom would probably get either depressed or pissed if I didn't, and that would do the same with dad in turn. While I'm on this overpriced tour thing I may as well appeal to her and find something actually fun to do at the same time. I pushed myself up from my seat and trudged begrudgingly towards the polished wooden door. 

The halls themselves reeked with the money people paid to experience an outdated form of travel, flying nibbles really became a familiar scent after all this time. Intricate designs and carvings were strewn generously along lacquered walls and furnishings, the lights themselves were distractedly covered in band after band of cut synthetic gemstones made in precision alchemy. Even the carpet was made up of some overzealous plush material and practically littered with complex patterns. I didn't want to complain about it earlier but holy hell the tourism company seemed like it was trying far too hard, I don't even know what style they were going for other than "everything that looks sophisticated". 

The most modest part of the entire train it seemed was the observation deck in the center, probably because there wasn't any walls to decorate. Drops of rain bounced away from the repulsion field which allowed still the crisp mountain air to chill everything. The view hadn't improved much compared to my window due to the giant cliff face we drove along blocking much of the rightmost sky. That didn't stop someone from setting up an easel in the corner and trying to paint the constantly moving landscape. 

A voice caught my attention, I turned to see my father beckoning to me. "Look who finally decided they were on a vacation." He called out. As I approached to join up with the rest of my family I noticed Jack leaning over the railing with his camera ignoring my arrival. I swear if he turns around and says something smug I'll sock him in the arm when nobody's looking. 

"I knew you couldn't sit still for more than two hours." Mom chimed and pat my back. 

"Wanna bet?" I replied, not quite catching it in my throat as I would have liked. 

"Now now, you're already up so there's no need to sit right back down. Maybe you could actually hang out with your family for once, eh?" Dad said with a grin. "Dinner won't be served for another few hours anyway." 

Fair enough. I leaned on the rails myself and started to watch the world crawl by, but it wasn't much different from what I was doing before. The main difference was that through the car flew the cold winds which tunneled down the mountain and blew into the valley. It was like something the pamphlet would say, 'Experience the crestfallen touch of a peak's rain-shadow without stomping about in the drizzle!' Nah, I'll probably never be on a marketing team if I thought something lame like that would be a hook.

"Actually... now might be a pretty nice window of opportunity to go work on my writing." My father's deep voice spoke up from behind me. 

"Oh Canis, I told you not to bring your work drive here. This is a vacation, not a shiny temporary cubicle." Mom groaned. "We JUST got John to come out of the room and now you're going back to take his place?" 

Father shrugged, he had already began to shuffle away. "There isn't any time like the present, and the present just so happens to be a really good time to write. Maybe the mountains will even inspire me!" After a few moments my mother surrendered and shooed him away, he hastily took up the dismissal. In his absence Jack took a break from his determined photography to play with the settings on the camera. 

"So when do you think he'll actually finish a book?" He said while fiddling through options and scales. Mom thwapped him on the shoulder almost immediately. "Obviously when he writes the final page of one, now stop speaking poorly of your father. I don't think you get to have the girth to criticize him when I haven't seen you write something over two thousand words." 

As fun as it was to watch my mother beat Jack verbally and physically, it wasn't enough to convince me that I was doing anything other than repeating the previous process of doldrums. They were right in that I should really try enjoying myself, and unfortunately for them this kind of thing wasn't it. "I'm going to go find something else to do now." 

"I figured, there's no way I could guess where you get that from." She sighed and shrugged before dropping her eyes to the pamphlet she was given back towards the beginning of the ride. "Stay out of trouble." She said routinely. I hummed affirmatively and took off towards the exit opposite of where I came in. Maybe trouble's the one that should stay out of me. That... sounded really stupid and wrong and as of this moment I'm glad nobody can read my mind. 

The next car greeted me with a sudden wave of warm conditioned air that smelled primarily of flowery cleaners. This one seemed to be more a social quarters than anything else, which was easy to tell from how spacey it was and how many people clumped together and chat. Even with all the room it still held the general consensus of over-designed nouveau-riche-bait. This company really seemed to have a fetish for that kind of stuff, their sparkly graphic designs were even covered in frilly fonts. As I weaved between the congregations of gossip I concentrated on imagining where an interesting time would most likely end up being. 

While continuing onto the next car I kept my head low and attempted to draw as little attention as possible. Naturally, any kind of luxury you'd ever think of or want would be available on one of these things. That kind of service was admirable, and it also typically gets very boring very fast. Despite all my prissy needs and desires being fulfilled I've always thought there was that extra mile you could go to really have a great time, and what could be a more enticing than something just a bit prohibited? Break the rules, stir up the wasb nest a pinch, find a little private and quiet place that you're flat-out not supposed to be. Live while you're young so the worst you'll get is a slap on the wrist and getting sent off to your parents. 

Admittedly a slap on the wrist doesn't compare to my mother's slap in the face, but it sure as hell beats staring at a midday shower and high humidity until dinner. As a dabbling delinquent I know exactly the kind of places I'm looking to infiltrate as well. No simple broom closet would do, only the deepest of storage and isolated rooms hidden behind both staff and immersion could sate my thirst for being distasteful. 

Though as it were, even the broom closets were stashed away behind all the staff and immersion money could buy. That sort of challenge would make it all the more thrilling to just find a way in. I had no intentions of theft or anything, but being somewhere I wasn't meant to be and observing what money bought me not to is always interesting. At this rate I'd sooner be a spy or criminal than a marketing guy when I grow up. 

Somewhere nearer to the front of the train I halted in a less populated car and looked around. From the chairs and tables in the last few yards it seemed to be the end of the dining area, though even this early there was still people hanging out and talking all the way up here. In the corner of the room I spotted a hallway that seemed far removed from how the decor pulled my eyes. I had my target of infiltration, now was the matter of sneaking by without anyone noticing. A fair glance around revealed that there were only a few distracted passengers and two uniforms to witness the act. 

Oh, I guess one of them was leaving. However fortunate my timing was, there was still one person left with the authority to catch me. I leaned against the wall and stared at him from the corners of my vision, never directly or somebody would notice. An opportunity arose when suddenly he got a call and put the spell phone to the side of his head. Slowly I inched towards the bend where I would slip behind the wall and- Oh what the hell, he's leaving as well. That just meant that it was up to the vigilantes of the room to catch onto my suspicious behavior. 

Any second now... aaand now I'm in the hallway and nobody noticed. Well despite the initial challenge being sapped away there was always the final gate, which in this case was just the lock on the door. The chances that it was left unlocked by a reckless employee were slim to none. I'd have to find a way to open it using only the pen in my pocket and my wits- Oh my god, the knob has no resistance. It was actually left open for real. 

As swiftly as my dexterity would allow I pushed in and shut the door slowly behind. Without any windows or sparkling lights my eyes only adjusted to see a mere few inches in forward. Squinting I scraped both sides of the wall with my arms in an attempt to locate a switch, eventually my fingers did graze against some kind of protrusion. I flicked it up and was temporarily blinded by the sudden flash illuminating the whole room. Now this was far more enthralling than any petty friendly conversation or dreary mountain range. 

Although there wasn't much particularly spectacular to the immediate sight, that was kind of the point after all. In the front was just a few hills of stacked chairs and a wall encompassed by folded tables, behind them were mounds of boxes littered with the word 'FRAGILE'. If the quality of everything outside was any indication then most of these were likely spare encrusted lamps and craftsman vases in case something vitally gaudy was broken. This would be an absolute field day for anyone looking to illegitimately scurry off with a few hundred chomps. Luckily for them, just that feeling was thrilling enough for me, I don't know what I'd even do with that much money. 

Getting into the boxes without leaving any evidence would have been a terrible idea anyway. If anyone does catch me then tampering with valuables that gives them an excuse to accuse me of theft, not to mention the tape and staples made it impossible to discreetly lift anything. I was better off just hanging around and trying to determine what was inside by reading marks and labels. 

I crept around the chair mountains to get a closer look at the white stickers muddled with words and numbers. The box at the top even had little graphics of gemstones printed next to the shipping data, I stifled a chuckle as I tried to make sense of the information flurry. The company's name was unfamiliar and far too foreign sounding, but at the very least I could tell they were a furnishings producer. Everything else on the sticker was a mess of codes and dates which didn't make a bit of sense. There must have been tons of enchanted packaging popcorn in there to protect whatever needed sixteen digits of identification. 

As I moved on through the room there were other kinds of furniture stacked on themselves, auto-mans and little drawers and whatnot. Near the back continued the cabin essentials like a bunch of folded white sheets and a huge basket full of pillows that seemed enticing to jump into. Other than that there was just some more boxes that seemed a little less of dire importance, they weren't even lined up entirely against the wall. I motioned to glance behind them for any treasures hidden away and indeed found a strange shape. It dawned on me like lead falling through water that I was looking at a body. 

For a few moments longer I stared trying to fully grasp what I was seeing. A tinge of dread crept into my chest and turned veins my blood colder with every piece more I could make out. A man, a boar, limp and stashed behind a wall of boxes and hidden from sight. His undershirt was stained with blood that pooled beneath his coat and formed a puddle on the floor that tried crawling up the cardboard. The deepest red was a hole present right in the center of his chest above where his heart was. A wave of nausea broke my trance and caused me to stumble backward away from the view. All I could do is focus on slowly breathing to not outright vomit, but my heart raced in the contrary. 

I coughed dangerously as my stomach refused to cooperate any longer. Oh god I could smell the iron in his blood from here. The next few moments were spent breathing only through my mouth and listening to whatever noises my body decided to make. With a shudder I finally gathered enough composure to peek over and check for certain what I had seen was correct. In hindsight it was a poor choice, I turned away and lurched forward. With all the desensitization in the media you'd think a dead body wouldn't be so shocking but... Canis they never could reinvent the smell of death like this. 

My guts began to regain their peace after having crawled away and laid out on the floor, but my heartbeat was picking up where it left off. Someone was freshly dead on board- not just dead but stabbed and stashed away. This was definitely NOT the kind of interesting secret I had hoped to discover upon sneaking in here. Did anyone even know it was there? Regardless the first thing I need to accomplish is getting the hell out of here, my moral compass could wait until I wasn't in the same room with a murder scene. I scrambled to my feet and shuffled evenly toward the exit. 

Very slightly I turned the knob until the door could just barely be cracked open. Pressing my head against it and peering out revealed a lack of presence, and there wasn't any noises which seemed out of place. If someone were to catch onto me then they'd already have noticed the door shaking from my hands. I took in a gasp of bravery and pushed out into the light, then I was face-to-face instantaneously with a staff member. 

"Uh, excuse me. What exactly were you doing in there?" The uniformed grey cat stared at me suspiciously, but my heart already caught in my throat. "... How did you get in there in the first place?" She added on. 

"Th-there are worse things going on in there than me snooping around." I couldn't think of anything convincing to say before words fell from my mouth. Her skeptical look attempted to see right through me. "Uh huh." 

Honesty was really the only way I was getting out of this. After all, there really was worse things than me trespassing. "I'm serious. There's a body in there hidden behind a bunch of boxes and I am getting the chuck out of here." I tried to meet her eyes as best I could. "I'm not kidding." 

"Look kid, I don't have the time or the paycheck to play around. Whatever you stole you'd better return or it's coming out of your parent's accounts, and I imagine that'd whiplash for you pretty bad." She said while crossing her arms. There had to be some way to show her. 

"Please, my name's John Bulton and I'm in cabin 15. If I'm wrong then you can hunt me down yourself and have me go through that whole process. Just, just at least check." Something about the desperate way I spoke put a sliver of doubt in her brow. She stood for a few more silent moments contemplating her next action carefully. 

"Fine. Just stay here, do not move an inch." She finally caved to the tension and backed up carefully into the storage. At this point I didn't have any intention nor reason to run off, I guess the decision of whether or not to actually tell someone was made for me. From here I could hear her feet shuffle against the floor searching for the validity of my excuses. Just a few more seconds and she'd find it. 

"Holy slip." Echoed tinged with dread from the back of the room. The cat emerged later with a stunned look, her mouth moved as if she were still trying to find the correct words to say. With a sigh she finally began. 

"Kid, just... Get out of here and find your parents or something. I don't know what you were doing in there but it probably had nothing to do with that. Now go, I need to make a whole bunch of calls I don't want to make." She shooed me away with a depressed dip in her shoulders. 

I gestured a zipper across my lips and nodded before scurrying off as quick as my legs could carry me back to a more populated area of the car. Seeing everyone smiling and talking completely oblivious to the murdered corpse not even fifteen feet away made my insides do somersaults. Although I straightened my back and took shorter steps to seem less frantic the feeling still tingled beneath my skin, forcing me to keep my hysteria locked away below my throat. 

Now I don't particularly like reading all that much, so those mystery novels where everyone's stuck on a train with the murderer appealed even less. There was absolutely no way that guy died of an accident or natural causes, not stowed away with a gaping wound in his chest. I don't even know why he was killed and yet it still brings me to a panic just thinking about it. 

With a pathetic moan I broke my pace in an empty corridor leaned against a wall to clutch my stomach. Alright, thinking about it more is just a really stupid idea at this point. Keep that up and I'm just going to vomit in the hallway unless I can find some way to distract myself. Oh my god I forgot about the cameras what if there were cloaked cameras that caught me going in there? What if I get called out under suspicion of the murder? No no, stop thinking about it. None of this is my concern anymore, the train's managers have to deal with it now. Nobody would blame a kid for something so grievous and nothing else, right? 

As I stepped out onto the observation deck once again I took a huge gulp of the cold air into my lungs. Immediately it began to calm my nerves and quell the rising unease in my stomach, another breath spurred the process further. A sigh of relief escaped me instead of an unstable attempt to maintain control. At the very least I could appreciate the mountain air for being incredibly fresh and soothing. 

In the distance I heard my name being called, I turned to see my mother waving to me standing beside a heavily dressed gray fox. Never in my life had I been as thankful for mom forcing me to greet people she met as that one moment. Upon approaching I examined the old fox, who donned a black winter coat along with sunglasses and a big rimmed hat which he fit his ears through. It wasn't nearly cold enough to warrant that kind of clothing, but who am I to blame stuffy rich people for not knowing anything but toasty warmth? 

"John, I'd like you to meet Sinclair Delquae, a retired stockbroker." Mom said while pushing me towards him. I held out my hand and presented myself by name as she would have me do. I knew the motions of formal greetings better than most, because if I didn't I'd have lost my head years ago. The fox's hand nearly encompassed mine as we shook. 

"It's nice to meet you, John!" He said in a high tone. As the handshake ended he leaned in slightly and seemed to stare into my eyes, I knew exactly what he was looking at and where this was going. "I see what your mother tells me of your having a lucky star is true. Would you mind explaining to me what it is?" 

Yeah, it kinda figures mom'd say something like that to someone else. At the very least making a disgruntled false grin nearly made me forget about the dead guy. "It's called Silver Rush, and it's nothing really special. I just sneeze bits of silver, have lots of sinus problems, and uh." I took off my ring and held it up for him to see, then twisted it sideways and pushed it inward. "I can do this I guess. Otherwise it's one of the disappointing ones." 

"Disappointing, you say? Well that's nonsense, all lucky stars are unique and impressive in their own ways. Anita here has a better mindset about your powers than you do it seems." He said, calling my mother by her name. Having heard all this plenty before, I just corrected my silver ring and slid it back onto my finger. "Hmm... Perhaps you just haven't discovered the usefulness of your abilities yet?" He added. 

"Usefulness?" I began. "Pardon me sir, but what use is there in sneezing traces of metal and being able to very slightly manipulate it?" Not the natural words I would have chosen, but anything to be able to argue my case. Silver Rush was about as useful as having your saliva glow in the dark. 

"Personally I do not know for certain. I have had many friends however who didn't realize the true potential of their lucky star until as far as their middle years. I'm certain you will find some situation in which it becomes apparent that your powers are underestimated." Sinclair glanced down at the back of his hand to look at the clock which projected on it. "Goodness, I'm afraid we're going to have to cut this meeting short. I'm expecting a call any minute now." 

"In that case, it was nice to meet you sir." My mother said and bowed courteously. He nodded and said likewise before heading off in the direction of the cabins. With the interaction finished I exhaled deeply as I normally would from the tension, except this breath was still full of anxiety from before. She turned to me once we were alone. "See? I'm always the one telling you that there's something special about your lucky star you don't know yet!" 

"I'm going back to the room." I spoke up flatly before finding my own way in the same direction as the fox. There wasn't any time for her to interject, and I felt a little guilty about leaving her in the blue like that again, but really my mind wasn't up to pretending something wasn't wrong. She'd be able to tell if I let her, anyway. 

At this point I really wished I could keep on mentally complaining about how garish everything looked like before. The more I told myself there was nothing to worry about the more I worried, and the nervous fluttering in my head was only getting worse despite my body having calmed down. Maybe I just needed to take a nap or something, just sleep it off until dinner. My thoughts were only replied to by my quickened pace against the soft floor splattered with designs. 


Junely 18th, 3:24 PM 

My grogginess couldn't disguise against the piercing reality of a knock at my door. It was then I realized that I had accidentally fallen asleep on my cot in an attempt to relax after having been given my cabin. The knock rang out again, I lethargically pushed away from my comfortable position and shuffled over towards the noise. The lock was undone in a swift motion and the knob turned uninhibited, at my door was a disheveled looking jay sporting extravagantly blue feathers. The clean cut green uniform he wore told me he was with the train's personnel. 

"Pardon me, are you Diego Vallion?" He said, his voice tinged with a stressed urgency. I leaned against the frame while still fully waking up. "Yes?" 

"I'm supervisor Gordon Ciera, Feenix Tourism, and a matter has arisen this afternoon which only you have the expertise and are qualified to deal with." He spoke formally but there still was an edge to his words. Regardless, waking up to someone trying to force a task upon you was typical. 

"What is this, then?" I grumbled. He instead motioned for me to follow him. 

"It would be best if we didn't discuss this here. Come, I will take you to where you are needed." I took off after him down the hall with a sluggish pace. Whatever it is must be an emergency if they had to wake me up and drag me from my room so that nobody else could hear. That, or this guy's an impostor and is taking me to some closet somewhere to shoot me. Either one was the advent of a lackluster evening. 

We continued onward through several more cars and into the dining hall, passing many a wandering passenger or heated conversation. I noticed that there were several flickering holographic signs for at least two cars back warning of maintenance work being done on car 7. Survey says that's very likely where the incident occurred. Anything requiring the expertise of a crime scene investigator in the middle of a tour was sure to ruin anyone's day. How ironic as well, it's the first day of my vacation and I'm already on the job once again. 

Car 7 itself was an immediate mess of faces and green uniforms, furniture all pressed away to the walls and the room cleared out of civilians. This was the point where Gordon had turned and finally presented a wing to the situation. "I very much apologize for interrupting you, Mr. Vallion, but it came to my attention that we were in an extreme position that there was only one law enforcement career on the whole train. An otter who has worked with the Mustelidae tree police department for four years." 

"I suppose you don't need to see my badge, then." I said, disguising the sarcastic tone for a neutral one. "That's good because I haven't brought it with me on my vacation." 

"Again, I deeply apologize for this inconvenience and will offer a full refund to your ticket, but this is a dire emergency and requires the utmost examination and care." He beckoned once again and led me in the direction of a utility storage room. Outside the door a cloudy grey cat had pulled up a chair and hunched over in it, rubbing her eyes and groaning. Once within I saw quite immediately what had caused all the fuss. 

The body of a man ragged and limp on the floor, a trail of blood from where boxes were relocated to reveal it. I took lead ahead of Gordon to get a closer look. From there I could see the wound in the center of his chest and how the blood repelled from his enchanted suit, soaking into the undershirt and pooling on the floor. Gordon spoke up from behind me. "As you could imagine, it's in our best interests not to cause a panic among passengers. I believe this is your specialty, is it not?" 

I noticed a few more nervous members of security shifting about the room and keeping their distance. "If I'm going to help you, you're going to need to tell me everything. How it was found, who this guys is, all that jazz." 

"Of course. We will begin immediately then." Gordon's soul patch flickered a moment until out came a holographic screen. "About at the tick of three around half an hour ago I got a call from the girl out there, Ms. Shadurr. According to her she was walking by to replace a light when a kid came out of here looking spooked half to death. The child told her there was a body, she checked and here we are now." 

I flagged down one of the guards while he spoke, a frilled lizard, and whispered for them to get me a notebook and a pen. They nodded and scurried off, I looked back to him and gestured to continue. "Okay, and who was the kid?"

"He said his name but I can't quite... Ah, here. John Bulton, here with his parents down in PC 15, mom works as a head enchantress. Says here his dad Aidan is an author but there's no references." He read aloud while zipping through the page. Looking down at the corpse of the boar I concluded that this was going to be about a hundred times more difficult without my equipment. "Any idea how the hell the kid got in here in the first place?" 

Gordon shrugged, moving the entire interface. "Shadurr had no idea, apparently the door was just unlocked or something." I grunted in acknowledgement and knelt down to the body. From what I could tell there wasn't any immediate indications of a struggle, from the severity of that wound he wouldn't have had much of a chance to begin with. Maybe the door was unlocked by the malefactor as he moved in to stash this guy? Although there would have probably been a trail of blood leading here even if most of the damage instead filled the chest cavity. The fact that there wasn't a single trace of this gory mess anywhere other than where he was laid was disturbing to say the least. 

Upon touching the dryer of his two wrists there was a trace amount of heat remaining in him. Judging from that alone this could have happened anywhere from forty minutes ago to just a few hours. "Now for the important bit, who was this guy and why is he here?" 

There was a silence which followed of the supervisor going through the passenger database. I took the time to retrieve some latex gloves, a box of which was laying around on top of a few stacked chairs, and luckily enough they were the heavy-duty kind which could withstand claws. The guards ordered to move the boxes were probably paranoid of contaminating the evidence, or at least getting blood in their fur. "Ah, here we go." Gordon exclaimed. "I'm pretty sure this man is Phineas Gerstrub, age 66. He ordered his ticket a month, six days, and fourteen in advance from this moment." 

"That latter part, I don't think we really needed that." I said while rolling up my sleeves and struggling to slip on the gloves. "See if you could find something like where he worked, his family and whatnot." The guard I had sent to retrieve a notebook returned, I whispered to him that I was going to be unable to take any notes and called upon him to do so. It's really not like he had much of a choice at this point. 

"Umm..." He took another searching pause. "Looks like he lived alone and has no notable family members in the vicinity. Closest is his sister who lives three territories away. He... worked as a financial adviser for most of his career it looks like. As of current he is one for Morpheus Industries." 

"Alright, so the train left station about five hours ago. The body of Phineas Gerstrub was recovered at 3:35 PM, still warm. It's presumed that his murder took place from forty minutes to three hours ago." I spoke aloud so that the lizard guard could catch everything, hoping he was decent enough in school to have quick note-taking skills. "Next outpost available we don't arrive at until tomorrow morning. Couldn't we just turn the train around?" 

"The train can't go backwards. It was never designed to be a completely functional version of what it's based from." Gordon said frowning. 

"That is. Really, really stupid of your company, Gordon." I held in my laughter, not because it was primarily funny but because it was hysterically inconvenient. Tragedy breeds comedy I guess. "Can we at least stop the train and call international authorities?" 

"That may elicit a panic among the passengers and the incident would surely cost us greatly both in ratings and nibbles. I could so easily be fired from my position that I don't think-" 

"What? If it's that easy to be discharged don't you think someone dying at all on your watch wouldn't warrant it? Maybe you wouldn't get fired if you followed protocols correctly." I snapped, then sighing as I regained my composure. "Whatever, just call the next town's police department later then. Right now we have a job to do." 

I carefully examined the body for further wounds, lacerations of clothing, anything else more subtle that would indicate clues. All that was apparent in the end was the gaping wound in his chest and nothing more. "Okay, so this apricide is theorized to be committed anywhere from about an hour ago to several hours, but well within the time the train has been in motion. Was there any specific point in which passengers were all required to stay in their cabins?" 

"Only at the very beginning when the train launched from station, and for around a mere five minutes." He said while continuing to make tabs of information. "Although I suppose it's an important detail to note, the security systems went down for approximately three minutes twenty seconds starting at 1:16 PM." 

Yeah, that sounded like it was an incredibly important detail. It fit in extremely well with the assumed time of death, although it doesn't really explain how someone was kidnapped and murdered in the middle of the day surrounded by other passengers. Such a feat, if accomplished purposely, did not bode well for the probability that this was a routine apricide. It would require incredible magickal ability as well as experience. 

"Oh, also an important note:" Gordon began again. "We do have footage of John Bulton entering this utility storage. The door indeed was left unlocked, yet we have found no evidence to support any of the staff exiting not locking it behind them." 

"Alright, you're going to have to indulge me on his side of things later. But for now we need to see to this body and anything we could possibly catch visually." I leaned over and peered into the wound, trying to catch anything out of the ordinary. As soon as I made the attempt it became apparent the natural light was far too dim. I turned my head. "Can I have the least squeamish of security to come over with a torch and help me out here?" 

Over came a goat woman who looked fairly bulky and intimidating, I could have figured that she was the hardiest one here even before asking. Without a word she fiddled with the multi-tool device intertwined holographically with her hand and summoned a beam of light onto the upper torso of the boar. I offered a quick thanks before beginning to bring apart sections of clothing heavy with blood. 

With a deep breath I bravely plunged my fingers into his disaster zone of a chest and began to more carefully scan for anything subtle. You'd think that after four years it would get any easier, but diving into ruined flesh most definitely was a rather permanent shock trigger in the brain. Or perhaps I was the squeamish one, not like that mattered much with my choice of work. 

I'm no medical expert per-say, but from what I could tell the sternum was cleanly penetrated for a straight shot into the heart, the weapon seemingly rounded in nature and undoubtedly with a strong point. Death was most likely caused by a class IV hemorrhage likely elicited by the aorta being compromised, and at this time there are no reasons which point otherwise. His own chest cavity would be subject to most of the blood loss and probably seemed pretty gruesome beneath all this clothing. 

Something other than deep crimson glittered in the light, I held my breath and leaned in closer. Wiping around the object allowed my finger to pick it up on the tip, in the sea of blood seemed to be a little flake of something silvery and reflective. I rotated my hand several more angles to check every perspective on the object. "Now what the hell is that doing there?" I muttered beneath my breath. Could be a part of the weapon utilized to deal the killing stab, could be residue from Phineas himself or the killer, it could be a lot of things. What I can't pinpoint at the moment is exactly WHAT it is. 

With my other hand I dove deeper into the gash and retrieved another two samples of the foreign object. "Looks like metal shavings to me." The guard shining the light spoke up. Yeah, that's a pretty reasonable assumption to make and probably one of the only leads we were going to get. Not without any advanced equipment. 

My joints popped as I stood from the uncomfortable squat which was taken. I turned the gloves with evidence still attached inside-out to remove them and set them aside to examine later. Even with gloves on I wasn't in any position to be touching anything without a thorough washing, I'll get everything started and get right to that. Turning around I saw the frilled lizard with the notebook waiting patiently for me to utter something of importance, of course I had forgotten to actually verbalize my thoughts during the whole examination. 

"Alright, you get that notebook to the security car and set it there for me later. I'll be the one to write down anything further so you'll be excused from that duty." I pointed to him and spoke quickly. Next I turned to the steadfast goat woman. "You're going to quarantine those gloves and bring them secured to the same place. With the resources there we should be able to pinpoint what the shavings actually are." 

And finally, Gordon was the last subject of my command. "What I'm going to need are keys to the security car and control over your database and men. What you will primarily be doing is hanging around me and relaying vital information related to the case as points appear. Right now though, you're going to have this corpse relocated and safe in the closest thing you got to a body bag. All of you complete these things as swiftly and efficiently as possible before returning to the headquarters." 

I dismissed them then, my own dispersal speed was far less immediate then everyone else. The smell of iron and latex still lingered in my nostrils as I shambled forward in the direction of the closest bathroom. It hadn't even been a night spent on vacation and there's already trouble burying me to the knees. Whatever I just bit into was likely far more than I could chew, the team at my disposal were a bunch of nervous watchmen rather than people who went through school just to deal with this kind of situation. Ah Musteli, I'm not even getting paid for any of this. A silent chuckle rose from my throat as the empty ornate car traveled steadily onward beneath my feet. 


Dusk 

"Are you sure you're alright?" Mother said poking her head out from behind a book cover. Like the times before I nodded and gave an affirmative hum, and still like before she continued to cast a uneasy glare. "It's just that you've been far more reclusive than normal tonight. You seemed fine when you first left the cabin but then you went right back to sulking. You barely even touched your food at dinner." 

"I'm fine, mom." I shrugged and turned my idle gaze back to the darkening landscape behind a foggy window. Father spoke up from behind a glowing screen. "She's right you know, I haven't seen you this quiet since you tried to ask out that buzzard girl. Is something wrong?" 

"Nothing's wrong." It couldn't have been more transparent if my words were made of glass. There was no amount of acting lessons I could take that would be enough to disguise my discomfort. 

"...If you don't want to be here so bad we could still get off on the first stop and go home." Mom gently whispered, Jack immediately objected but was shushed. "Alright, two of us could get off and go home early.

"No no, it's nothing like that. The train's fine. I just feel, I don't know, sour or something. It'll be fine." I spoke to the window. In truth I'd have very much preferred to take my whole family and get off this train as soon as possible, but that was probably just my own anxiety. 

"Okay. But the offer still stands if ever you'd like to change your mind." She said, it sounded so sympathetic. Still I refused to ruin this vacation for anyone just because I got frightened because someone got shanked. People die all the time, people get murdered like all the time, there was no reason to get so worked up that the inevitable happened. The good money mom paid to get us on here wouldn't be wasted just because of me. 

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and looked down at the shadowy passing foliage. I've been telling myself that all afternoon, haven't I? People die all the time, it's no longer my problem, don't ruin this for your family. Maybe if I could just manage to get some sleep then it would be a lot easier in the morning. Although the time I tried just before dinner was a mess of tossing and turning that only succeeded in giving me bedhead from pushing a pillow into my face so often. Just a few hours was all I need, then I could forget- 

A knock at our cabin door interrupted my thoughts and pierced the awkward silence I brought upon the room. Closest to the door, my father pushed himself from the recline in his chair and made to twist the knob. Standing patiently in the hallway was a wolf in guard's uniform. My heart jumped into my throat and got stuck. 

"Is there anything we can help you with, sir?" My father asked curtly. The guard's expression hardened. 

"Yes, is there a John Bulton present?" He said. Dad nodded while mom shot me a suspicious face, probably automatically assuming I had done something to break the rules. "We will be needing him present in car 4, security. An incident transpired earlier this evening which we believe your son is a witness to." 

"Oh my god John I thought I told you to stay out of trouble?" Mother whispered sharply at me. 

The wolf heard it regardless. "Oh no, he isn't in any immediate trouble or anything. We just need to ask him a few questions and we'll send him back here as soon as possible." 

Father looked back to me for the final approval, resentfully I hopped down from my spot beside the window. I suppose it was still my problem after all, as much as that caused a nervous churning both in my guts and head. Solemnly I wove past father and took the place beside the guard shifting anxiously. 

He thanked them, my parents said their goodbyes and told me to be good and whatnot, it seemed a lot faster than it should have been. As the door closed the guard told me to follow them, we took off through the hall and into a more foreboding silence. To think that if I was just being accused of trespassing I'd be completely calm and collected right now. It's more comfortable to be in trouble with the personnel than being innocent and taken for questioning about a murder. Even the ridiculously convoluted decor seemed just a little bit more sinister now that I was a puzzle piece in the meaning of someone's death. 

Slowly I noticed just how empty all of the cars were as we passed through despite the brisk pacing. When before there were people about and talking in almost every corner and table, now only the sober movements of the train chose to speak up. It wasn't nearly that late in the day yet not a soul wandered the halls. Needless to say, it didn't bode well for the tension building in my chest with every step. 

The thickest air was present as we finally reached the car 4. As I was showed in through the door the first thing I noticed was how much more brightly illuminated it was compared to even the cabins. In the intense light there were was a huge wave of faces, different sizes and species abound all in the same green outfit and chattering busily. The wolf motioned me forward again, sensory overload wasn't meant to stop me now. I tried and failed to swallow a growing lump in my throat. 

"Oh, John, come have a seat over here if you will." A mustached brown river otter beckoned to me from a clustered arrangement of chairs in the corner. Instead of the normal green uniform he wore a long leather coat and seemed to be scribbling away in a notebook. I felt as though I was beneath a magnifying glass and the whole room was staring at me, but the only thing I noticed with a quick glance was the indentation in the west side of the room; a cell. Although I probably wasn't going in there it still made my blood run a few degrees colder. 

As I approached there was a realization that I wasn't the only one under the microscope. The grey cat who caught me leaving the storage also sat across from the otter, hunched forward and lax. She noticed me next and flashed a quick tired smile. "Some kind of mess we've gotten ourselves into, huh kid?" 

"For certain this was the child you saw exit the room?" He finally looked up from his notebook and spoke towards her, she gave a quick affirmative response. "Just making sure. That will be all, Ms. Shadurr." 

It wasn't without a yawn and great stretch that she stood up from her chair. The man went back to his notes while she took her sweet time moving towards the exit. As she passed by the seat I had chosen there was a pat on my shoulder and a murmur wishing me luck, then I heard her footsteps grow fainter behind my head until the door swung open and came shut with a click. I suppose it was my turn in the spotlight. 

"Let's get right to it, then." He said while throwing off the cap to his pen. It was somewhat strange that he was using a pen and paper medium to begin with, did he think it was more reliable? "There is footage caught on the security cameras of you sneaking into the western utility storage room at approximately 3:02 PM today. Do you find this evidence to be true?" 

So there were cameras after all. "Yes." I said flatly. He looked away while twirling the cap and quickly turned to a page to scribble something out. "Okay. Why did you enter the storage area at that time?" 

"I don't know, boredom I suppose?" That was a really stupid answer. Regardless, he still continued to bury his gaze into the papers before him. "Why were you bored?" 

"I couldn't find anything else to do. Places that are set off-limits are the most fun to get into." And now I just sounded like a proper juvenile delinquent. 

"And when you attempted to enter, the door was already unlocked?" 

"Yes." 

The feeling mounting in me could be compared to sinking into the deepest parts of the ocean. It was far too long ago that the sun shined through the surface, and now all I could feel was the pressure steadily rising around me as I fell more and more. The otter stared contemplatively into the notebook while I was certain the room stared contemplatively at me. I hated being the center, I should have just stayed bored and been complacent with that. 

"While you were there, did you have any malicious intention such as theft or vandalism?" He continued flipping his pen subconsciously in his fingers and looked up at me. 

"Of course not. I just wanted to see what was inside." Then a kind of spark ignited something of my confidence. Maybe I could turn this around a little, make conversation rather than just being lined up against a wall. Such a thing sounded redundant for me to even think about, trying to force small talk in such a place. "Though if someone did want to steal or break something, why would they say so if they already got away?" 

"Perhaps they'd do it from the bounds of their honor, maybe the will to be an honest person. Maybe they saw the intentions of the law and thought it a greater cause than their own selfish desires or actions. Even if they were a less savory type then they'd plead guilty in order to soften the blow of the punishment. In this specific situation they hadn't preformed such actions but there was already a greater crime committed then the one they nearly did commit, therefore they might contribute their feelings to assist in resolving what did take place." 

"Oh." I shouldn't have opened my mouth. 

"Well, did you have any malicious intentions or did you not?" His tone had remained unchanged from before, somehow that made it far more intimidating. "I did not." I replied softly with the spark properly snuffed. 

He flipped through several pages and took to making a few more scribbles. I dropped another fifty feet in my ocean of tension and felt one foot smaller than before, I kept my eyes low to the floor just in case I accidentally met someone's gaze. The buzz of the florescent lights above droned on while I waited for him to ask his next question. 

"Describe to me the exact situation which took place when you discovered the body of Phineas Gerstrub." He looked up and patiently took his turn to wait. 

"Um... I hadn't even been in there for more than a few minutes until I found the body. The lights were initially off so I found the switch and started looking around. For a while I was just guessing what was in boxes and looking around, then I thought it was weird that a few of the boxes were sticking out away from the wall a tiny bit. After checking behind it there was very little time between before I tried to leave the room." As I finished I tried to swallow the psychological lump in my throat again, realizing just how dry my mouth had become. The otter just kept on writing away. 

Behind him a blue jay dressed with the fanciest garbs in the room closed the distance and whispered something unintelligible into his ear while he stared at a page. He muttered something back and nodded, motioning drawing a circle somewhere on the paper. I accidentally let my eyes wander about in the instant, before realizing I shouldn't have looked up at all I accidentally caught some of the unfamiliar faces in the room. Most of them actually looked almost as distressed as I was. 

"Alright." I returned my focus to the tired looking man. He capped his pen and closed his notebook before dropping both on a nearby empty chair. When he leaned forward resting his elbows against his legs I started to really worry. "It's kinda obvious that you possess a lucky star, would you mind elaborating to me what it does?" 

The question came as a surprise to me, which was ironic because the same thing was asked as me almost as much as 'What do you want for dinner?'. Suddenly I realized that at some point during all of this I took off my ring and have been fidgeting with it in my right hand since. My fingers closed tight around it as I actually had to find the words to explain my lucky star. 

"It's called Silver Rush." I started, feeling several more eyes trained on me. "Those who have it can bend silver objects an insignificant degree and also produce a small trace of it in their nose. Otherwise it doesn't do much else than that." The words felt stale leaving my mouth as I raised the ring into the air and demonstrated malleability as I have hundreds of times before. An awkward silence fell upon the room and attempted to crawl up my back. 

The bird whispered something else of a higher pitch into the otter's ear. His expression didn't change, but instead he pulled the notebook open again and intensely absorbed the chicken scratch he wrote previously. Did I say something wrong, was I out of place? Did I accidentally sneeze in the storage room from the dust and didn't notice? 

"So here's the deal." He finally said with a sigh, leaning forward and making whole eye contact. "My name's Diego Vallion, overtime intermediate crime scene investigator for the MTPD, and I'm terribly sorry for how your night will degrade from here." 

"What do you mean?" I fought to retain all outward composure against my limbs shaking with anticipation. 

"The weapon used to murder Phineas was something of a stake and very roughly an inch in diameter, and within the wound we recovered metal flakes which we assumed was evidence of said weapon. Upon later analysis we determined the material to be silver shavings, matching the properties of Silver Rush." He spoke without blinking. 

No no no I did not commit a murder. "Mr. Vallion sir I swear on my life that I didn't stab that guy and, sneeze on him or something. You can convict me of trespassing all you'd like but I did not kill that man." 

"Alright. I believe you." He said. I inhaled to further my argument, but the surrender caught me off guard and left the air hanging. 

"I'm not saying that you did kill him, it's just that it all adds up in weird ways that end as a big inconvenience. A Silver Rush lucky star matches the wound to a T and you're the only documented user of such an ability on this train. Precautions need to be taken, you know?" His face stone, he reclined in he chair once again. Although he spoke with the same harsh consistency the words still eased at the pressure digging into me. 

"What do you mean the wound matched? Can my sneezes impale people or something?" I found the courage to ask. 

"Silver Rush users can manipulate their element upon direct contact, the finer the consistency of the silver the greater control they have, the more they form coherent shape. That ring is probably too thick for you to really have much of an impact on, but you still don't really have to knead it the way you do." 

What. 

"I ended up fishing for case that happened a few years ago when trying to figure out what kind of weaponry would conventionally be made of silver or have it as a byproduct. It was only domestic dispute though so I don't think it could be linked to now besides the murder weapon in question. Actually took me a while to find since Silver Rush translates strangely into different languages." He seemed to talk to the room as well as me. 

"Wait, wait. What?" I shrugged off my disposition to interrupt. "I can do what now? What do you mean I can form coherent shapes with fine silver?" 

"Oh, were you unaware before?" Vallion mused before biting the cap off his pen and delving once again into his notebook. "You really should get your hands on some refined powder to practice with once you're out of here. I wouldn't recommend killing someone with an amorphous knife when you do, though." 

Bewilderment painted over my expression as I looked down at the gleaming obtuse ring in my palm and tried to process fully what he meant. Direct contact, too thick, to their will, what the puck? The rest of the room disappeared in my perception as I focused all my concentration on the metal, trying to imagine what the mental process was for willing something to change. How could deviate from what I've already tried before that and end up unveiling I could force shapes to happen? 

Like a twitch the ring barely visibly began to change curvature and return to it's original shape. The process was unnatural and slow at first, but for some reason it should have seemed as easy as using a muscle or blinking an eye. Without moving an inch I could force the ring to a circle, squish it down till two inside walls touched, twist it back and forth, and return to a circle. And it just happened. 

And suddenly I realized I was still in the middle of an investigation. A thought drifted into my head and threw itself onto my tongue. "Doesn't... Doesn't the fact that I didn't even know how my lucky star worked kind of prove my innocence? I can't murder someone with a weapon I didn't know I had." 

"Technically there are a lot of ways someone could use weapons they were not aware of, but I suppose it's most likely in your case." He stood up and threw his notes down with a finality. "That being said, you were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time in one of the worst of ways. There are a lot of precautions we need to abide to in order to get through this mess. Unfortunately, that means you're going to be stuck here for a long while until we can get some definite information." 

"So what? Does that mean you're just going to make me sit here all night?" My shoulders slumped. 

He brushed off his coat and reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. "As I've stated before, I really am sorry for how all this is playing out. And with that, I'm starting to get a headache and desperately need a smoke." Vallion made his way to the door, but not before ordering one of the guards to stay behind and watch me. As he left it was like an official signal to disperse to the whole room. Including the jay who trailed behind like a lost pet, every other face followed him out in intervals until it was only me and a frilled lizard who was too busy watching some show on his spell phone. 

Otherwise all that was left of the room was the constant humming of the lights above. A powerful sigh rose from me as I depressurized and lasted several more empty seconds. I don't know what I expected that could have possibly warranted how tense I've been, why wouldn't a trained experienced investigator be reasonable enough to assume a kid didn't outright murder someone? Even if my mother went on a warpath to try and find out why I've been gone for so long, it's not me who has to come up with the excuses anymore. Dad would probably be just be mildly worried and Jack probably ends up enjoying my absence. Now I'm just a 'really improbable but we can't be too careful' suspect that's more of a guest than anything else. 

Conforming to most theories of hospitality, guests were also locked in the room and watched by lazy guards who just wanted to see the next episode of Professor What. The metal chair I sat in became increasingly uncomfortable the more it became apparent how long I was meant to stay sitting. My restless eyes caught on the abused notebook Vallion had left behind, the rest of my curiosity followed suit. Only out of intimidation did I hesitate to take a swift peek inside. 

Although, I was incredibly relevant to the case at hand after all. They'd have no reason to lock me in here if it was the contrary. The least they could do at this point is show me the process, and it's their fault for leaving me alone beside it. Despite my growing confidence I hesitated still in contemplation of possible scenarios if they did catch me sneaking peeks at his notes. The other guard didn't care, and the longer I waited the more likely it would be he returned right in the middle of my exploration. 

In the instant I swiped up the notebook and swung it open to the first page. While deliberately flipping through it was apparent the book had been used previously as some sort of log by train officials. Diagnostics, minor passenger data, and calendars in neat handwriting covered pages thoughtfully until suddenly there an influx of scratchy quick characters and violent scrawls. Having found where the investigator got his hands on it, I slowed my pace and began to look up and down the pages trying to decipher the poor penmanship. 

Most of what I could actually read was information he already gave me or I already knew, except told in huge over-complicated passages that were almost hieroglyphs. A few more pages down there was a giant name circled in the middle of a clustered page: PHINEAS GERSTRUB. Everything else was layered beneath sections that seemed to be underlined related traits, beneath these were lists of names where some had little marks beside them. I decided to take a stroll with my eyes to see if I recognized any of the names, glossing over his family members of course. Nothing seemed familiar until I reached the tab labeled CAREER, and beneath that a subsection which said Morpheus. There were only two people in that section; someone I didn't recognize and my mother. Then it occurred to me that these lists were far more than just vague comparisons. 

Anita Bulton continued to stand out against the rest of the page. Both of the Morpheus section even had that weird scraggly symbol beside their names, which in no way could be a good thing. The pit of my stomach still knotted up despite that it was obvious this was all speculation from how many other names were on the page. It was already bad enough that I got caught up in such a mess, I didn't want my mother to be a suspect nor the next victim. Oh god what if the killer was going to take out more people? 

Speculation, it was all speculation, there was like a hundred other people that could be the next victim. The worst possible situation doesn't need to happen because this wasn't one of those novels at all. Even with the existence of magical death winter, there was still some hope that I wasn't in a murder mystery as the main character. Besides, Diego probably would have been the protagonist if that were the case, otherwise it'd be boring to follow around a stupid kid like me. Right now I just needed to find something productive to liberate my mind from paranoia. 

After closing the notebook I attempted to set it back exactly how I remembered it, I probably didn't want to go much further in how my mom could get murdered anyway. The oblong metal I had forgot was in the center of my hand reminded me that I just made one of the greatest discoveries in my life so far. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty productive thing to focus on. Though it was still evident that, despite my ability to slightly bend silver with my mind, there wouldn't be much more to gain while the ring was in this state. Canis knows how much abuse this ring's already taken in it's existence. 

Now I would need smaller samples of the metal to make any more progress in understanding just what the puck my lucky star allowed me to do. Idly my hands played with the ring like a ball of clay, it was kind of weird to think about how it was the belief my fingers would shape the silver that allowed me to do so rather than actually just doing it. Oh, OH. Silver was like clay! 

Rather than having to sneeze on my hand for a few hours I just dug a claw into the walls of the ring to test it's sturdiness. As expected it bent to the pressure I was applying, but continuing to scratch at the silver I noticed a loose jagged line forming with displaced bits accumulating on the sides and beneath my nail. As I attempted again more tiny flakes fell from the ring and into my hand. How did I never accidentally do this with my claws before?

Bending over the chair beside me so I wouldn't have to catch the debris, the process of breaking apart the material began. The crevasses grew as layer after layer gave way to my touch and fell into the growing pile. Silver apparently wasn't that willing of a metal to be torn apart in this way, at times I found I had to focus scraping at an area to make surrounding ones more accessible. I tried not to think about how delicate the process was and continued stubbornly shaving. 

Leaning forward and concentrating in such a way brought strain to my eyes and an ache to my back, though these feelings were muted far away from the task at hand. It just barely crossed my mind that it seemed like Vallion was taking an unusually long break. I shouldn't blame him, this death probably ended up encompassing his vacation as well and just look at just how swimmingly it was going so far. These thoughts passed harmlessly through as I was too occupied to attempt imagining an excuse for his continued absence. 

Only once the ring had been reduced to a sad thin crescent shape did I begin to take meticulous care breaking apart the final pieces. There really wasn't much sentimental value in the alchemaically produced silver, and technically it was serving it's purpose better as a pile of dust than it ever was whole. My nails clicked together over and over trying to get the perfect clip, smaller and smaller until there was no possible way I could break it down further on my own. 

As I stretched out my back and yawned I gazed down at the accumulation of glittering powder on the top of an adjacent chair. While the total size consistency was a lacking department, at least the misshapen chunks would theoretically suffice for greater control. Cupping my hands and pushing any excess residue towards the pile in the center I noticed that most of it seemed to stick to my fur and had to be brushed off. The way silver acted to my touch somewhat reminded me of how snow clung to hair and itself, but any time I broke away it collapsed into it's natural state. Kind of like a magnet? 

I dipped the tip of my claw straight into the pile and slowly lifted upward, bringing with it the whole clump of the shavings. With a flick of my mind it began to crawl up my finger in an insect-like fashion until all the pieces accumulated in the center of my palm. Of course it would have been a much faster process if I helped it along, but that wouldn't have helped me figure out how to bend things with my will. Such a skill was nothing like how mother had described powerful magicks, in fact they seemed fairly antonymous. Instead of some great intimidating flow there was nothing, rather than an explosive whisper which could unravel at any minute there was nothing. Absolutely nothing about it felt like exertion, even mentally. 

Practicing some basic three-dimensional shapes seemed like the best option for learning to hone my lucky star. Little dull pyramids and squares were easy enough and came quickly to figure, but trying to round out the flakes was a more difficult process than previously anticipated. A perfect sphere couldn't be made because of how the bottom would just open up into my hand to stay attached, I'd have called it a retarded pyramid and chuckled immaturely to myself if I wasn't so engrossed in the motions. 

A startled yelp rang out behind me followed by the steady buzzing of a spell phone. I turned to see the guard's retracting frills which inevitably flared out in fear, despite the lack of a crowd I saw crimson embarrassment spread across his face. He put his hand to the side of his head and seemed to pretend as if none of it happened. 

"What's up?" His voice was a poor attempt to disguise that he had been asleep not moments ago. The other line didn't sound too happy, it spoke very quickly and with a harsh tone that seemed to worry the lizard. "Wait, what?" He replied while pushing his hand closer and blocking off his other ear. 

The line said something different with the same pitch and an emphasized speed. The guard's face grew more grim with each word which was uttered and left the air hanging once they had finished. "Uh... Yes, sir." He finally finished and allowed his arm to drop back down to his side. In the instant following he scrambled to the door and fumbled with his belt for the jingling keys. 

"You. Stay here." He shouted to me in the frame before slamming the door shut and locking it from the outside. From the hall I heard the heavy footfall fade away into the sharp humming lights above my head. 

I clenched my fists and allowed the silver to mold between my fingers. It had finally dawned on me that nobody's showed up for like half an hour, and now the only security member left in the room was called and frantically ran out of the room. That could mean a million things at this point, perhaps they found and caught the criminal? Wishful thinking aside there was a possibility another body was found or a separate crises has arisen. If the train was on fire then I certainly didn't smell any smoke. 

My distraction which I upheld for so long fell to the rising anxiety that something awful had just happened. I wanted to know if my mother was alright, I wanted to know what was going on, I was locked in a damn room like a feral animal. It was never in my nature to take these kinds of things sitting down, which was great because my legs were really starting to hurt from such an uncomfortable metal chair. 

The first thing I tried was looking up and down the tables and counters for the possibility somebody left their keys. After the initial glance if there was nothing I'd move boxes around and look beneath paper to find anything misplaced. The room was too small, too soon had I started running out of places to look. Rummaging through cabinets next felt a little invasive, but it was still their fault for leaving me alone in here. I was going to find out what was going on no matter how much more trouble I was going to get in. How much worse could it be anyway? 

The same result would occur regardless of where I looked. Even the most successful drawer of it all just held a nail filer and a broken physical multi-tool. Turning towards the door, I attempted to quell the hopelessness with sticking a hand into my pocket and letting the silver I stashed pile together onto it in one mass. By all common sense it should be possible to lock pick the door with Silver Rush. The problem was that I still barely had any idea of how it worked. There was a difficulty in even making simple shapes, how was I supposed to recreate a key from scratch and use it? 

While approaching the lock I examined what I could of it's nature. More accurately speaking, I tried peering into the hole for no reason and obtained nothing but darkness from it. Even if my mom did work for a locksmith company I still hardly knew anything useful about the mechanisms inside. Besides, magic locks were different from physical locks like this one anyway. The only thing that was a little confusing was that the cabins used a hybrid where both types of mechanism were used whereas this door seemed to just be physical. Maybe there was some weird scenario in which a hybrid could undermine security- Whatever, whatever! I need to get out of here. 

I motioned towards the lock with the slender silver pick I formed jutting from the tip of my finger, but still hesitated to begin the attempt. The last time I attempted to do something like this was summer school last year, and it still took half an hour in the middle of the night to do with real tools. There was no certainty that an amorphous glob of metal shavings that I moved with my mind would fare any better. 

Gingerly I angled the pick into the dark hole and allowed it to flatten as it pleased to fit properly. The mechanism inside brought my progress to a halt, now would come the complicated part. I imagined the way a key would have slid beneath the pins and willed the silver to inch under the first with a sloping shape. At best I could attempt to figure out a crude substitution to the intricacies of the lock. With an ear against the door and my eyes closed I could hear the faintest click ring from within, whether it was my silver knocking around or me succeeding the first trial I was unaware. 

Further and further I imagined Silver Rush invading the lock and pushed only after what I assumed was the gentle click of a pin. Occasionally I'd force the shape to be as solid as possible and attempt to twist the lock, to no avail yet. There was no way to know if the technique had even surpassed the first pin, but I guess there was never a better time to learn than now. The heat of stress began to accumulate on the fringes of my face and willed me to pant, I bit my tongue instead from an old habit I never could kick. I was running out of material now with my finger pushed all the way to the brass of the lock. 

A breath caught in my throat as the mechanism suddenly turned without resistance. For a few silent moments I slowly twisted clockwise until it came to a halt with a clunk. Rotating back I suddenly remembered how to breath and took in a tiny gasp. Withdrawing the silver revealed the obtuse key which was artificially created from within, the rounded replica looked nothing like what it was supposed to. Instead there was a thin glittering rod which abruptly curved up and down like a lightning bolt. With my other hand I twisted the knob and felt it relent willingly to the action, and now I was free. 

Unfortunately there wasn't any time to feel proud of myself, this next part was far too delicate to warrant running out of the room like an escaped prisoner. While shoving the crude key into my pocket and feeling it dissipate as it left my contact, I ran to the opposite side of the room and began to scan over some of the papers pinned to the walls. Once I had examined the correct sheet and internalized the correct room number I turned heel and ran for the door. The specific path there would surely become apparent to me as I jogged. 

Every hall was darkened from how the windows only held a pitch blackness, devoid of people and sound. No more fitting for the night of a murder after all. I sped over the plush carpet as fast as my paws could manage while remaining discreet and listened intensely for any shuffling or opposing footfall. There was no telling where everyone went, or when someone was about to exit a door for me to run into. My mission was to find out what happened and escape captivity, and my intentions were to complete both without failing the other. It'd be redundant if I figured out how to lock pick a door just to walk straight back through it from being caught. 

Hesitating at a corner, I found no trace of anyone near and continued my shadowy pace through the train. A killer was on the loose and could have been anywhere. Worse, my mother could be dead right now and I'd have no way to know otherwise. Just maybe I could use a contact on the inside and kill two birds with one stone. Not literally since it'd probably be much easier for me to use a silver blade to do the job. Oooh slip now it's evident that I can use Silver Rush, here comes an obvious suspicion from the investigator. 

Without much fault I arrived in the first car of the staff cabins. The original ornate vintage of the train seemed to fall into modesty as complex designs made way for simplicity. I'd have appreciated it more if the situation hadn't been lined with adrenaline and dire. At a jog I sped by door after door glancing at the numbers which represented them. A6, A7, A8... 

A9. A deep breath was all the preparation I had before knocking frantically at the door. There was a muffled response from within, seconds ticked by judging from the heartbeat in my ears. While waiting I couldn't stop shuffling in place like I was still supposed to be running. 

The grey cat who answered looked down to me with a face of confusion. "Kid?" She uttered before yelping as I pushed my way past her and into the strong warmth of the room. 

"Ow, what the hell are you doing?" Shadurr shouted, I shushed her and interjected before another outburst could take place. "Be quiet. Did you get any messages about some new emergency or what?" 

"Message, wha- What are you even doing here? How did you know which room was mine, why did you just barge in?" 

"Sssh shush. I will explain everything but I just need you to shut the door and tell me what happened elsewhere." I muttered breathlessly. She stared for a moment more before obeying and leaning against the wall. I began again still panting. "Thank you. Now something happened somewhere on the train, I don't know what and that needs to change." 

"What? Was I actually suppose to get a message or something? I turned my spell phone off a while ago." She shrugged, crossing her arms. 

"Please, you have to turn it back on. I need to know if my family's alright." The desparation finally began to spill from my voice, in the corner of my mind rose a tint of embarrassment. 

"Woah! Fine, fine. Hold on." She complied, with a flick of her wrist orange light erupted up her hand and illuminated the walls. From the pad of her palm a dashboard rose with a similarly tangerine border. A window flooded with text forced it's way onto the foreground, she stood for a few agonizing moments with her face bathed in light and eyes dashing back and forth. "Oh. Someone else got murdered." 

"Who? Tell me who!" I shoved my hands into my sweatshirt pocket to hide their shaking. More seconds, her black pupils darting, finally she spoke again. "Do you know a Craig Houstine?" 

What came next was an overwhelming wave of relief which forced me to clutch at my shirt. "No, I don't. Oh thank Canis I don't know that guy at all." I took a seat on the floor right where I stood and leaned back on my arms. "That's really good news. Probably the best all day." 

"I mean, it's great and stuff that your family didn't die, but there's still someone going around killing people on the train we're all stuck on." She reached over and locked her door accordingly. 

"Yeah, I suppose it's not actually good news. I'm selfish enough to feel great about how nobody I knew died though." By that point I had gathered myself and spoke more naturally than before. I began to notice little intricacies around me, starting with inhaling through my nose and catching a great whiff of perfume and the smell of laundry. All that brightened the room's beige walls besides the spell phone was a lonely warm lamp in the corner. There was far less space to move around than that of a passenger cabin. 

"But no seriously." Shadurr strolled over to her cot and pushed away a mangled pile of blankets to take a seat. "Are you going to tell me why you're here or not?" 

Oh, right. I kept my seat on the carpet and spun around to meet her, she probably deserved to know at least why I plunged past her all of a sudden. As soon as I found somewhere to start words began to pour from my mouth like a waterfall. The topic bounced chaotically from my reservedness at dinner and the investigation, the knowledge of my lucky star and having to break out of the security car. It all spilled from my lips suddenly as if I'd been saving the story up for years. I even ended up demonstrating my powers with the pathetic pile of silver in my pocket, which she acknowledged thoughtfully. 

In the middle of it all I still couldn't put a finger on why I trusted her so much. Chances were that she was just the first similarly overwhelmed stranger to cross my path and listen. Could have had something to do with the atmosphere the room possessed, I certainly thought it homelier than the passenger quarters. We've both had an incredibly long day, I actually found out her name, we were the first to have seen the body, the list shouldn't go on this much. I stowed in the back of my mind that she was cute since she was probably like ten years older than me. 

By the time I was finished my lungs were emptied again like I took another jog through the halls. Shadurr continued to sit attentively and waited to see if I would begin again. In the following silence where I caught my breath she gave a quick stretch and decided her turn had finally come. 

"Holy slip kid, you've had one hell of a day it seems." She leaned back on her cot. "Except in all of that you still haven't explained why you came to me of all people. Like, couldn't you have just went to your parents to see if they were okay? I don't even remember your name dude." 

I hesitated as the same questions had already circulated through me before. "Um... I guess I didn't want to get caught again so soon. Figured I could hide with the other person most displaced by this whole thing happening." She continued to stare at me expectantly. "Oh, right. My name's John." 

"Katz. Great time for warm introductions, hiding from cops on a train live with a murderer." She said equipped with the same tired smile everyone seemed to wear. 

"Your name's Katz, and you're a cat?" I stifled a snicker into my hand. 

"Hey shut up! My dad was kind of an asshole and thought he was funny." She shot back. "At least my name isn't boring like yours." 

"Eh, fair. I'm pretty sure I was just an average bland delinquent until like an hour ago." While making a dismissive gesture an idea found it's way into my throat. "Say, you don't think you could find out where that recent dead guy worked, could you?" 

Katz shrugged and brought forth a flood of light from her phone once again. "I can't access passenger logs or anything like that. Although there might have been some bio stuff in the original message. Let's see here..." Text scrolled by. "Houstine, I think this part says he works as a board director for Morpheus Industries. Why'd you need to know?" 

"... Kid? What's up?" 

A chill traveled up my spine and spread heaviness across my chest like mercury in my veins. This ran far deeper than a steep coincidence, I imagined the mess of arrows and lists in Vallion's list scribbled over until the obvious was all that was left. "We need to go find my mom. Right now." 

"What? Come on, tell me what's going on." Katz spoke as I scrambled to my feet. If the investigator remembered anything from his research then he'd probably have the same idea by now. 

"The last guy worked for Morpheus, too. And so does my mom." Fear laced my voice no matter how much I could try and hide it. I wasn't sure how much more excitement my body could take today before giving up outright. 

"Oh." As she rose from her seat she shot a hand towards a pair of boots that were previously thrown off without care. "Okay. It's okay, we can do that. Where do you think she is right now?" 

I stammered. "Uh, well. I mean she's probably still in her room, right? I don't know any reason why she wouldn't be." Katz accidentally slammed the back of her hand into some drawers and let loose a flurry of profanities still doing up laces. "That's where we're headed then-Nnngh. You'll have to show me the way." 

"You're going to help me?" I spoke more softly than I would have liked. The vulnerability banging around in my head paired with foreboding and made me feel like a helpless little kid. The tip of my finger touched the silver in my pocket and felt the weight of it add to mine, the best I could do was make a tiny little needle and run terrified at whoever easily killed two people prior. 

"Wha- Why the hell would I not help you? Come on, we need to go." She beckoned for me to take the lead and began fumbling with the lock. I kind of wanted to cry, but the tears were held back by horror and maybe the tiniest speck of courage. Clearing my throat and wiping my nose on my sleeve, I decided that the time to feel sorry had already passed half an hour ago. 


Junely 18th, 8:32 PM 

I flicked the stubby used cigarette into the pitch black sprawling in front of me and continued leaning against the railing. The freezing air of the night did well to mask the taste of smoke on my tongue, a little less to quell the rising thrum of a headache which began to develop not too long ago. With a heavy breath I shut my eyes to the world and rubbed circles into my temples. Before returning to the car I'm going to have to run off and find some painkillers or something. 

"You know you could have probably just sent the child back to his parents." Gordon's voice echoed from behind me. "We pretty much got all the information out of him that he could give. Poor kid didn't even know what his lucky star did until a little while ago." 

"It's a boon we even have someone else with Silver Rush around, that could come in handier than you're giving him credit for. It also ultimately still entrenches him as a suspect in this case." I turned to him lazily and leaned backward on the guard rails. 

"Come on, do you honestly see that kid killing anyone? He couldn't even break into our storage without the door being unlocked prior, and all he did while inside was stand around doing nothing." He instinctively checked his messages before returning his attention to me. 

I shrugged as well as I could in my position. "It's all well and good to say that it's probably not John, but I've seen what it's like when the criminal ends up being the kid, or an accomplice. Preventing any of that business is the best course of action for him right now." 

"Couldn't you still just send him back to his cabin and nab him whenever he's needed next?" Gordon said. 

"I suppose... but in your style I'd avoid the more complicated conversations with his parents." I resigned, pursing my lips and lowering my head. Gordon grunted and started walking off to one of the exits. As he left I noticed several other staff members still standing about among the observation deck, all seemingly just as reserved as me. It was easy to imagine the stress which was wringing the liveliness from them during this busy day. Most of these workers surely expected a smooth ride, an incident of this caliber hasn't taken place on the train for six years. There's a reason the cabin doors possess hybrid locks. 

The other members of the guard retired to their rooms not too long ago rather than just loiter around in the cold and dark. Now was probably the best time to catch even the tiniest moments rest or maybe call a loved one. By order and contract they weren't allowed to speak of the events which transpired yet, not at least until the next checkpoint in the morning. I'd understand completely if it somehow did end up leaking to the public early and causing a ruckus. Gordon wanted to keep all this a little more quiet than most people are capable of, I didn't even get around to checking if he contacted the next town's police as I told him to. No doubt he'd throw down an iron talon and immediately discharge anyone who leaked the crime too early. Such a callous mistake would cost what I'd assume was an extremely well-paying job. 

Hopefully I really will get that refund at the end of all this. Not to be materialistic but my kind of services don't come cheap, and neither does the eight years of college. The tourism company might catch me a break since this is my vacation time that I'm using to clean up their messes. My kind of mindset would really throw me into a very poor moral standing if people could hear my thoughts. Luckily I'd know by now if anyone on the train had that kind of lucky star. 

For now my notes were all the leads I had to solving this case without any intermediate equipment. I couldn't even scan the body for DNA prints, though with the execution of the crime I'd highly doubt the criminal left any simple evidence behind besides the smallest specks of silver. If they were more well-equipped than me to begin with then even the slightest loose hair would have been disintegrated. One could wonder what the true intentions were of the guy who invented that kind of stealth potion years ago, that kind of invention doesn't just pop into your head on a rainy day. 

The rightmost door to the passenger cabins swung open with a bang, everyone on the deck turned their heads simultaneously to the wolf guard in the frame heaving for breath. His wide eyes searched faces around the car until they found me. "Mr. Vallion sir, you are needed in car 11 like right pucking now." He gasped. 

I sprung from my recline and sprint to the door ajar, following the guard closely behind as he lead me down the hall. The urgency on his pitch told of some something far more pressing found in the middle of a public space than a since-dead man. Electricity beat itself into my muscles and forced me to forget the heaviness in my eyelids and the ache behind my eyes. Our footfall beat against the wooden boards beneath sumptuous carpets. 

Outside entrances of car 11 was an extension of the mess which unwound the train's populace. Curious bystanders crowded together trying to catch a glimpse of the scene while the few hapless security members available attempted to hold back their advances and photography. The guard I was following escorted me through the blockage of bodies with a great deal of resistance. I was allowed through by the poor soul assigned with haste to hold back the crowd, and at that point I had finally saw what the emergency was. 

Laying limp in the center of the hall was a sloth postmortem, still oozing blood from a wound in his chest and staining the rugs around him. I surged forward and grabbed for his wrist to make certain if he had a chance to survive. 

"Trust me. He's dead, sir." I turned to see the hardy goat woman from before standing staunchly against the wall. "If you look really closely you'll see a bunch of puncture wounds exiting from his chest, like something exploded outward inside of him. We don't have the medical equipment in fifty miles to deal with that kind of cardiac trauma. Even magic would have been a pathetic excuse for life support." 

"Tell me what happened." I rolled my sleeves up, only now did I notice the distant chattering of bystanders. Some doors were merely cracked open slightly for curious eyes to peek at the commotion, while others stood in the frames gawking openly. 

"I was patrolling nearby when I heard a scream. Came in to somebody bleeding out on the floor with people gathering around and yelling for help, trying and failing to resuscitate him. We're still trying to clear some of them out but there's barely enough guards here as it is." She pushed off the wall and made a gesture of using a phone. "It's the same wound as before, in case you're somehow wondering. Looks like our guy dropped subtly in exchange of effectiveness with how he spiked out their weapon inside this man's heart."

Another guard found their way into the commotion. It seemed that people were responding to the emergency call which went out earlier. I rounded him up and gave the order to begin escorting people away from the scene, if I wasn't in a full blown frenzy I'd have been able to think up of where to put them. For now I was just going to let them decide all the little details. Once he salute me (which I don't think was all that necessary) he ran off fulfill the task. As I finished I turned back to the goat woman. "You seen pretty perceptive of his injuries for being just another member of security." 

"Eh, I got this job to pay off medical school. A few things carried over I suppose." She shrugged. The hypothesis seemed sound upon closer inspection of the wound, tufts of fabric jut out of tiny holes which dotted the white fabric soaked of crimson. It would have been far more difficult to notice had she not initially pointed it out. 

Gordon eventually did find his own way into the situation and let loose a stream of muffled vulgarities at the sight of the mess. He approached while dodging passengers being herded in the opposite direction, in the instant he already activated his soul patch and began to dial numbers. I beckoned him over while he barked orders into his illusionary phone and dismissed the goat woman to assist in maintaining smooth evacuations. 

"I can't leave for five minutes without something terrible happening, can I? For the love of Aves I just used the bathroom and someone gets shanked in the hallway." He stared briefly in despair at the leaking body before sighing and returning to his screen. The rest of the security team began to shuffle in past the crowd with the proper supplies to handle the situation, the second death around seemed far easier to prepare for. 

I nabbed some latex gloves from the box and struggled to slide them on as a few more guards laid out a noisy blue tarp beside the corpse. Exercising extreme care I translated the sloth over onto the tarp while the carpet squished beneath my feet from the blood it had already absorbed. In retrospect I probably should have put gloves on my feet as well. A twinge of guilt finally ran me through as his head rolled limply to the side upon the crinkling sheet, my responsibilities beat at the door of my subconscious. 

"Hurry up Gordon, who is this guy? There can't be that many sloths on this train." I shouted behind me. If the exhibitionism and sloppiness were any indication we were running on strict borrowed time. With the criminal's prior interest in stealth gone it seemed like they felt closer to a cornered feral with how the investigation was going. There were few things more dangerous than a cornered feral, with the exception of everything present in magical death winter. 

"Okay, okay. I'm pretty sure this guy is Craig Houstine, 36 years old. Oh geez he had an unemployed wife and four kids." He paused for a moment caught up in drafting a separate message. "Um, it says here he worked for Morpheus as a board director. The other guy worked for the same company, right?" 

Good a lead as any. "You." I pointed to a feline guard returning from escorting the last few passengers away. "I need you to find absolutely everyone on the train who is affiliated with Morpheus industries and bring them here." 

"There's only one more person who matches that description Diego." Gordon spoke up from behind his holographic wall of text. "Anita Bulton, the kid's mom. Cabin 15." 

The guard gave an affirmative nod with a salute and rushed off. I don't know what gave these guys the idea to start saluting me like I was a military officer but alright. The empty moment was filled with the unfortunate realization that my headache was returning with a vengeance. Shrugging off the pain I knelt down on the clean side of the tarp and began to examine the body for any outlying symptoms. 

Besides the obvious more violent execution technique there was nothing suspicious hidden beneath his sticking clothing, still not a single sign of a fight or struggle. No visible silver flakes either, but it didn't take a quantum magician to guess the wound was likely made by the same criminal as earlier. I wasn't going to get anywhere with this case just going off of physical evidence. Now at least I had two points of reference by which to prevent a third death tonight. 

"What companies do you think would want to put hits out on important figures within Morpheus, Gordon?" I said as I pulled violently off the gloves which tried taking my fur with them. From behind he stammered from between a scroll bar and a barricade of data. 

"Um, how would I go about figuring that out? Do I compare stock prices or something?" 

I attempted to scrape the blood between my foot paws onto a clean stretch of carpet. "Along with a few other factors and a lot of research on corporate relations and history, yeah. Start that up when we head back next." 

From the other hall came the man who I sent to fetch Anita, and in tow was nobody. "She wasn't there. Her husband said she left about twenty minutes ago to go check on John and hasn't come back." He rasped out, lacking in breath from his sprint. 

"She might be at security. Go, and bring the child as well. It's very likely we're going to need both present to cooperate with the other." I barked before returning my gaze to the man who used to be Craig Houstine. Catching a pool of blood leaking onto the floor I pulled up and wrapped him behind a side of the tarp. A hole opened in the pit of my stomach, the death earlier hadn't even brushed my conscience the same way as this one. By all rights Craig is a loss on my behalf, life taken in the middle of a case I already began to crack. The killer had to have made an error large enough for me to slip my fingers beneath and pry apart. 

"Can you check if he corrupted the cameras again from that thing?" I turned to Gordon and applied pressure to my temples. 

"No. For safety reasons you can only access the video files from the main computer." He answered back. I swore silently, that was exactly the kind of thing we needed to find an edge. Chances are this guy wasn't incompetent enough to not preform his little EMP trick. 

"Actually, we should probably still have the footage even if the cameras were magically tampered with." We both turned to a uniformed frilled lizard. He shrugged and spoke up. "I heard one of the IT guys was furious that someone got through the system so easily that they set the feed to copy and encrypt whenever a failure happened. Don't quote me on that though, it's just word of mouth stuff and I don't know how it works." 

"No, that is what we need to hear in every way." I clapped and let loose a weak laugh. At some point my latex glove must have broken because a drop of blood flew from my hand and landed in the center of the white shirt I wore beneath my coat. At this point in my career that kind of thing was a minor inconvenience, it would neither be the first nor the last article of clothing I'd ruin in this manner. The spot didn't subdue the glimmer of hope which was held within some proud programming jockey. 

"Give that man a damn raise while you're at it, Gordon. We'll get to debugging that footage as soon as this situation is stabilized." A burst of pain erupted across my sinuses and tore at the backs of my eyes. With my clean hand I grabbed at my forehead and blindly found a wall to lean against. With all that was happening what I needed most was a bottle of painkillers and a faucet to run my head under. 

"Mr. Vallion?" I heard Gordon's voice through the thick fog that strangled the insides of my head. 

"It's- It's nothing. I just need some aspirin really soon is all." Staggering away from the wall I pinched the bridge of my nose and began a path towards the exit. On top of that I also needed my notebook and to wash off the blood that was smeared on my fur. 

In my path the feline guard returned from his quest with empty hands and a grim expression. "There was nobody there, sir. The door was unlocked and the place was totally empty." 

I froze in place to the chill that ravaged down my back. For a single moment we had an edge, and so soon the situation had degraded so much farther. Glancing behind me I saw the same visage blooming on several more faces in the room including Gordon, even my own noticeably furrowed in pain and stress. A slight burning in my lungs reminded me to take a gasp. 

"Get the rest of your men." I began. "Relocate this body, send everyone else to scour the entire train. Leave not a single particle of dust or silver unnoticed. Utilities, storage, larders, absolutely everywhere quadruple checked. Unless you'd like a third or fourth death on both our career records I'd suggest you get people moving." 

I turned heel and took a brisk pace into the continued hallway. My legs pushed faster and faster until I had already broken out into a jog towards the front end of the train. Every synapse in my heart blew gaskets as ornate furnishings and foliated walls flew by in the blur of motion. They were still on board, we would have known immediately if anyone or anything left the train. Sensors built for maintenance lined and monitored every inch of the train's perimeter. Something as large as a body being thrown off would be far too easy to track. Of course they knew that, they wouldn't come so unstudied. 

The search started as I barged into a broom closet like there was a bomb inside. I found nothing around, beneath, above, or within anything in the enclosure. No cloaking or camouflage, no traces or clues or scents, it was an untouched and average broom closet. As I stepped back into the open electricity flooded back into the muscles in my legs, unthinking I was already on the move for the next alcove to comb through absolutely. The criminal put themselves in a very volatile position far earlier than I had anticipated. If they had already captured or killed Anita Bulton then this kind of action wouldn't have been a misstep. For all we know the murder could have been a distraction to divert our attention and our leads. 

Eventually after clearing several more possible hiding spots my sinuses caught up with me and became too much to bear. I collapsed into a nearby chair and smashed my side into the corner of a table in the reckless staggering. My breath started to shake from exertion, spots dotted my vision even with eyelids tightly shut. Nausea born from strain threatened me to lurch forward and lose the meager bile which encompassed my empty stomach. A little voice in the back of my mind disguised by an overwhelming migraine whispered gravely to continue the search. 

Footsteps echoed against the floor distinct from the throb in my ears. "Are you all right, sir?" I cracked my eyes open and witnessed the silhouettes of two uniformed guards standing at attention. It took a great effort to gasp a good breath in and sit back up. 

"I'm fine, just keep looking. Don't stop looking." As soon as I was done gesturing them away I held my head in my hands once again. They seemed to get the message and their steps faded away soon after. My composure slowly began to return, grunting as I pushed the chair back and wobbled to a stand. There wasn't any respite to be had until this was all through, my pace would just have to be a little slower and more considerate. At first when I took off it was more akin to a labored shambling than a strut. 

Soon after finding momentum again my equilibrium returned in my step and the guise of productivity outmatched the monstrous pangs. I began to 'gently' rush through arrangements of tables freshly cleared from dinner. The interior of the train was devoid of anyone but officials and me, even more so now that there was a global order placed to remain in your quarters until further notice. This place specifically was emptier than my stomach and far more quiet. 

Down the corridor I saw something which caused me to blink rapidly. "Sir!" John called out from a few feet away and shot out in my direction, he was trailed by someone I vaguely believe was Ms. Shadurr from earlier. 

"John, what the hell happened to you?" My senses shook themselves alive. "This is no time to be running around! There's been an emergency curfew and everything." 

"I broke out myself since you told me how to use Silver Rush. Listen, we need to find my mother as soon as possible." His voice was tinged with the same panic which spread like a plague this evening. 

"Wait, so you don't know where she is?" I said breathlessly. 

"Wha- That's exactly what we were sprinting out here to tell you!" Shadurr shouted from beside him. "Are you saying you don't know where she is either? Not even in her cabin?" 

The look of dread on John's face was almost contagious. I didn't know what to say, but there was always a flowing list of actions rolling around in my mind. Taking a knee I brought myself to his level and put my hands on his shoulders. 

"Okay, okay. John." I began while making level eye contact with him. "I have the entire security force and then some out looking for your mother, and goddamn we're going to find her. What I need to know is if anything or anyone suspicious happened upon your mother at any point during this tour. Give me anything, doesn't matter how small and unassuming it is, and I'll listen well." 

He looked away and gathered his thoughts for a moment before speaking. "It's kind of hard to be able to pinpoint anyone specifically weird with how social my mom always is. I suppose there was this one guy today, wore sunglasses outside in a cloudy mountain range. Like I've met a lot of strange people that did things like that but if we're assuming someone was hiding a lucky star I'd start there. That's not much to go off I guess, sorry." 

"No no that is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. Can you tell me anything else about him, species?" 

"Um, I'm pretty sure he was a gray fox. I don't remember is name, kind of a big winter coat, seemed like he was pretty old. I remember my mother mentioning something about him being retired. He also said something about his friends not finding out what their lucky stars did until they were middle-aged. Oh! He talked about Silver Rush kinda like he already knew I wasn't using all of it." John shifted uneasily, no doubt still anxious about his mother. 

I recovered from my kneel and gave him a reassuring pat on the back. "We're going to find your mother, and the murderer at the same time. I was about to start sending off people to sift through passenger cabins anyways." My attention turned to the feline beside him. "Whether he sought you out or you found him it doesn't matter, I'm going to trust you with looking after him and getting him to the security car. See if you can't flag down a guard-" 

"I'm coming with you." John interrupted. "I can still help you with my lucky star, and I don't care if it's dangerous. If you lock me in I'll just break out again and find you myself." 

Ms. Shadurr shrugged in response. "It's true, I don't have any reason to believe he didn't figure out how to pick locks with that weird power of his. By the sounds of it he'd just do it whether I kept watch of him or not." 

A sigh of complacency escaped me. "Alright, fine. Just stay back if this lead ends up not being a dud. Got it?" He nodded, and with that we took off back down the way I came. There was enough information that I could just ask Gordon to run through the passenger database and track down the guy's location. Chances were if this guy was the criminal or had additional leads pertaining to such, we'd be able to find Anita going off of that, hopefully more alive then her two predecessors. 

A few guards stopped by when they saw I had found John. I sent them on their way to keep looking for his mother regardless and continued on my own way. It very likely wasn't going to amount to anything at this point, but it was better to keep the men active rather than let them soak in their stress. 

Gordon was found airing out on the observation deck not too far from the recent scene. He seemed contemplating with this head low until I entered the corner of his vision. Upon catching sight of John beside me he became ecstatic immediately. "Oh, thank Aves you've found them! What a relief." 

"I've only found John. Anita Bulton is still missing." I noted. 

"Oh." He muttered disappointed, then lastly noticed Ms. Shadurr's presence. "Katz, what are you doing? The entirety of non-surveillance personnel were ordered to remain in their quarters until further notice." 

"The kid wanted me to go with him, so I went." She replied smugly. There was a visible apprehension between them, definitely from their contrasting personalities and past exchanges. 

"Listen Gordon, none of that matters at the moment." I interjected before they started fist-fighting. "I need a room number for an gray fox, considerably aged, probably wearing a big winter coat. You think you could open up the data banks and make a quick look for anyone like that?" 

He readily raised the bend of his wing and brought forth a panel of light from his soul patch. Illegible fonts rolled by and swung through windows. It took no time for him to begin getting results, which for several moments he sifted through and examined for matching traits. 

"Well there are three people of that species here at the moment, but I'm assuming you're not looking for the two who are in their twenties and thirties. Through process of elimination you're likely getting Sinclair Delquae who you'll find in PC 38. Why, you think he knows anything about the murders?" 

"Call it a hunch, but I'd call it a starting point. I guess we'll see." I said, beginning to take motion again having heard what I needed. Hastily I thanked him while passing by and beckoned for both both John and Katz to remain in tow. The fresh situation was almost enough to forget the incessant pounding in my head, except not quite. I wasn't sure just how much longer I could keep up this facade without giving in and collapsing on the floor. This had better be done quick before that happened. 

The spot where Craig had been stabbed and killed was now barren besides a thick fabric which was laid out over the most grievous of blood stains. I gave the area a wide berth and noticed my followers staring at the few blotches of crimson which eluded the cloth. Into the next segment and onward the numbers attached to doors rose steadily by. Soon enough we found our way to the front of our destination, in polished golden characters was 38. Before knocking I noticed the droplet of red which found it's way onto my undershirt, my appearance was recovered with a quick two buttons and I resumed my task. 

A faint shuffling could be heard from the other side of the wood. The lock clicked as it was undone, in the frame stood a man darkened by the lights shining behind his figure. The fox stared ambiguously from behind a pair of thick round shades. "Can I help you?" He said in an inviting tone. 

"Ah yes, I'm Diego Vallion of the mustelidae tree police department and I'm here on behalf of the incident which occurred earlier this evening. As I'm sure you've heard there was a polisacide which took place in plain sight within the halls of car 11." Speaking formally took far too much concentration as I mentally battled a losing war to maintain my composure. 

"I did hear about that whole mess. Terrible thing, really. Now what's an officer like you doing on a train riding the outskirts of canine territory?" I didn't like his tone, seemed to try too hard to be charismatic. Of course at the moment still there was no way to confirm if that wasn't his personality as an old coot. 

"This used to be my vacation until matters which required my services most arose. I'll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing in a moment, but would you happen to have any information on the incidents which transpired this day?"

"Incidents means multiple." He shook his head. "Obviously I haven't noticed the earlier one, and the most recent I can't say anything very meaningful. Only general viva voce from guards and a few people who bore witness." 

The situation would have been made far easier if he just wasn't wearing those glasses. On top of knowing for certain if he hid a lucky star or not I'd be able to make eye-contact reassuring his claims. "Sir, before we continue this conversation could you please remove your glasses?" It was bad manners after all. 

"Hmm." Sinclair dropped his smile and paused. "You said this is taking place over your vacation, correct? Do you have your badge with you? Technically I am not legally obligated to obey if you didn't." 

Musteli dammit old man stop being so difficult and cooperate. "It was just a simple request is all, it's rather rude to try and hold a conversation without making eye-contact." 

"Apologies, I think I'll have to decline the request for personal reasons." He replied. 

John suddenly interjected. "What makes those reasons so important that you can't have a decent conversation with an officer of the law?" I could already feel our foothold slipping away. 

"Oh- Is that John Bulton back there? What are you doing in the middle of this hectic night with this brash man?" He craned his neck to get a good glance behind me, the grin returned to his face. "Ah, I suppose in this case I've been quite rude in not reciprocating personal details for the discussion of your lucky star. I truly was pulled away too soon to continue it. Just this once I'll listen to little Johnny so that we may be even." 

Upon the removal of his shades it was revealed that his eyes were, without a doubt, visibly completely normal. The only thing which could be noted at all was the hazel which rounded his pupil. 

"I've been conceived with poor genetics, you know. These are prescription glasses to assist in my irritatingly potent sensitivity to light. That is why I wear them at a constant and always seem to avoid the topic." He blinked thoughtfully before returning the shades to his face. At least I could thank the kid for coming through the man's stubborn skull, even if did seem to be a dead end. 

"Just one more thing and I'll be out of your hair." I began finally. "There's been a disappearance of a woman very close to when the murder occurred. Would you happen to know anything about the whereabouts of Anita Bulton on this train?" 

"No, I don't believe I do. Sounds decently guilty to me." Was all he replied. 

"Alright, that will be all. Have a good night." My mind raced to finish off the exchange before my composure imploded into itself. He casually wished me luck in my endeavors and shut the door with a click. Within the instant my hands found themselves pressed forcefully into my temples. 

John looked particularly crestfallen as I glanced behind me, Shadurr whispered something quick into his ear. The trail had grown cold so soon after such a heated segment of time, and even more was at stake now than ever. All hope was riding on the successful recovery of the surveillance tapes. 

"Please, Mr. Vallion. Don't let them kill my mom." John looked to me past my pained squint. A pang rang out in my chest as well as my head. 

"Ms. Shadurr, don't leave his side. John, go get the rest of your family and bring them to the car 4. We're going to try something to figure out where she was taken." Without waiting for their response I took off in a direction as fast as my feet would carry. My breathing was shallow enough as it was, with the steep delay in time debugging the footage possessed I needed to recover painkillers as soon as possible. 


Somewhere around Midnight 

Diego sat still as a stone in the glow of the screen, and was far more patient than one in his recline. With the rest of the lights off he was the most visible person to the ill-adjusted eye, adorned with a harsh shadow which exaggerated how tired he looked. You could scarcely hear him take a breath in these agonizingly long minutes as the tapes were slowly unraveled by some strange program. 

Beside him my father had taken a seat a long time ago. At first they whispered rapidly back and forth, but after an hour it seemed like they ran completely out of things to say. In his arms Jack already cried himself to sleep, and a poor one at that in which he restlessly tossed and turned constantly. It was probably in his best interest emotionally to pass out the way he did after how long it took for him to break down. 

Katz was still here as well, but she already lined up a row of chairs in the back and crashed on them before conversation even halted. At some point dad suggested I get a few winks of sleep as well in this calm. As is my nature I refused and did my best to stave off the exhaustion that grabbed me in every way. Weaving the remnants of my ring through my fingers to distract me had grown tiresome and now the silver sat stuck to center of my paw pad. 

Even if I made the attempt there was no way I'd be able to fall asleep in a situation like this. My limbs were cold and clammy, my throat was dry and my nostrils hurt, and there was far too much a typhoon circling in my head to give in so easily. It didn't matter how heavy my eyelids were if the world around me weighed so much more on my waking conscious. Not in this schrödinger's limbo without the knowledge of whether my mother was still breathing or not. 

And so I stayed up with the rest of them, watching a sluggish process I didn't understand unfold on a bright screen overwhelmed with information. All the passive sounds of the train had already become so familiar that it just seemed like silence. Occasionally the monotony would be broken by the jingling of Diego reaching for a bottle of aspirin, it seemed like he had already taken an extremely dangerous amount of them already. After he had swallowed more the same nothing returned as it had been for several hours now. 

Then suddenly the light coloring the walls changed shade as the screen turned a different window. Diego leaned in and muttered a quiet cry of success. "Finally." The rest of us sat up with wide eyes and high expectations. With a hand raised Mr. Vallion deftly traveled through tabs to prepare accordingly to the discoveries we may just make within a few minutes. One page I could catch was the passenger database where the supervisor jay had logged him in as administrator before retiring himself. Without any further hesitation or pause a three-dimensional hologram was fabricated over the keyboard which recreated the camera's view down the hall. A twinge of needed good cheer sprung into me as I silently noted that even from a video feed everything looked so tacky. 

A soft tension filled the room as the footage began to roll, everyone staring intensely at every detail and passerby. After a few seconds Diego would roll the clip further several minutes and force the image to shutter. The whole scene flickered to signify when the fail-safe triggered, yet despite the disturbance a picture remained. Now every body in the shot was a suspect at any point, the hush which befell the room was deafening. But for a moment there wasn't a single soul in the flickering corridor. 

A sloth walked into frame from the north and continued on his way, Mr. Vallion placed his face into the hologram. In the opposite direction came a broad man wearing a long dark coat and had covered their head with a hood. The replay let loose a flurry of motion when the two were to pass one another as the two bodies collided. The video was paused with a shout and the knocking back of a chair. Diego's form prevented me from witnessing him rapidly advance back and forth mere milliseconds over the murder. From the little snippets of violence I did catch, the size of the stain on the carpet indicated a far gorier scene than that. 

Father stood as well after placing Jack aside and the two began to murmur between each other while playing with different frames. No doubt they were trying to figure the identity of this criminal with the complex view they were given. Around the table they circled like sharks and searched the heavily clothed man up and down for a slipped detail. Soon they went to the views of other cameras at different times which were appointed at the same shady person. Several minutes passed until they ceased to flip through time and stayed on a single point. 

"Aidan." Diego said and pointed somewhere which still eluded my vision from where I sat. Activating a different display they pulled the passenger database and ran text into it. 

After a brief pause he spoke up again. "Deities above, John you were right all along." He moved away so that I could see the screen, the same gray fox from earlier posted in a profile shot. Looking down at the holographic recreation I saw the slightest bit of dark-furred tail peeking from beneath the long coat of the man. 

"But- Didn't he end up not having a lucky star? And didn't the jay say there was two others of the same species on board?" Looking closer at the evidence I couldn't find anything further to deny it. The familiarity was far too uncanny to be incorrect. 

"They don't have lucky stars, either." Diego began. "Nor do they have the same height when compared to the environment, nor were they both not already accounted for in different footage. Unless this guy thought and prepared for literally everything then this is him." 

"How did he kill people with Silver Rush if he didn't have it to begin with?" The blood rushing back into my legs prickled intensely. 

"I don't know. That's what we're going to figure out." He swiped away the hologram and minimized the page of Sinclair Delquae and put his spell phone to the side of his head. 

"Wait, did you find out where my mother went on the cameras?" 

My father was next to answer, his voice deeper and more soft. "We looked for that as well. She was walking down the hall when the disruptive magical pulse went out, and by the time the cameras recovered she was already gone." 

While the call continued I looked down at where the hologram used to be pensively. The same man I had talked to from earlier this afternoon, he was so unassuming besides the whole weird rich person thing. The fact that he had probably already knew my mother's name from a contract even before they spoke sparked an anger within me. 

Behind us Katz stirred due to all the commotion in the previously dead silence. Recovering from awkward position she lethargically sat up and yawned before trying to take in any news. If she went off the movement, the detective heatedly on the phone, and the change in lighting it must have been pretty obvious what occurred in her slumber. 

"Okay." Diego lowered his hands and clasped them together excitedly. "Aidan and I will be accompanied by a team of drowsy guards armed with stun pistols and all that good stuff. Jack, John, and Ms. Shadurr will remain here until we return, hopefully after having searched and found more evidence necessary for arresting this guy." 

I puffed my own chest out to give my terms. "I'm not staying here. My lucky star can still be useful if the kind of weapon he uses is made to look like Silver Rush, and I'm tired of being locked in and waiting." 

"John, please. We just want to keep you safe." My father looked to me with pleading eyes. 

"Ah slip. I should have figured you were going to say something like that." Diego turned and stared at the wall in contemplation, recalculating his plans. I wouldn't lie and say that I wasn't scared, that staying here wasn't a very enticing alternative. "Sorry, dad. I've made up my mind." 

He sighed, defeated far too easily. "You are just like your mother." Father turned to Mr. Vallion. "Unless you're thinking of locking him up in that cell, he's going to find a way to us." 

"I suppose it feels right. It still is his mother after all, and there will be plenty enough guards to ensure his safety. Just make certain that he stays in the back." He turned apprehensively towards the door and leaned against the wall waiting. I'd have thanked him if there wasn't already too much tension clogging my throat to speak any more. 

"I'll watch the little kid then." Katz spoke up for the first time since she awoke. "Apparently I'm good with kids, and I'm not in the mood to keep chasing after this guy like you have." 

And so we had reached a quiet conclusion and patiently awaited the call for action. Most of the preparation done from then on was done mentally until there was a stern knock at the door. The calm before the storm was quickly ended as, within the corridor, stood a cluster of guards; every hand ready to pry a fully-charged neuromagical pistol from it's holster. Even if all they had to go off of was the orders of their supervisor and temporary leader, they were fully prepared to follow the detective onward without any further proof. Diego had already won their trust and command several hours ago. 

"Good luck, kid!" I heard Katz shout a final hopeful farewell as a nod signaled to start moving. The next moment I found myself suddenly running down the otherwise silent train with the group, the cacophony of footfall brought an image of soldiers marching to battle. Hopefully this was the last time for tonight my heart would race faster than my legs. Carelessly barreling by the meticulously intricate decor I found myself wondering again whether mom was already dead or not, and how the answer could have been less than a few minutes away. 

Passenger cabin 38 not twenty seconds ago was surrounding by nothing but a peaceful conditioned air, now at least twenty men and women in uniform crowded outside of it, all kept awake by the adrenaline which surged powerfully in their systems. Not a single nervous shuffling or shaking breath could be heard as Vallion knocked a fist three times against the hybrid-locked wooden barrier. From where I stood there wasn't much to see, but I could have sworn there was a clattering on the other side. My father put his hand on my shoulder but none of us looked away. 

Eventually the fox did arrive at the door and begun to undo the lock. Forcefully it swung open and revealed his visage so disgruntled at the welcoming party which arrived in the middle of the night. "Now just what in the hell is going on here? People are trying to sleep!" He said after a quick survey. 

Diego was quicker to offer his explanation. "Sinclair Delquae, you are under arrest for the murder of two men and suspected kidnapping of one woman. The evidence in the form of video footage will be displayed to you upon arrival to the nearest police force at approximately 8:00 AM tomorrow morning." 

Sinclair shouted in protest as a wave of guards swarmed into his room and apprehended him, training stun pistols at the whole of his mass the entire time. I took my place in the door frame and watched as the event unfolded almost too fast for the eyes to comprehend. 

"Get your hands off me you runt! Otter, you do not have the authority to orchestrate this arrest! Mark my words, the legal action taken on you and this company will be harsh and without mercy!" He shouted furiously while a few security members fought against his struggling until they could fasten a telekinetic brace onto his wrists. With a whooshing clank his arms were completely restrained. 

"I'm sure it will. I have been validated by the active supervisor in order to carry out this order, and am also under a constant code of honor to intervene with criminal activities whenever possible. I'm obligated to tell you that I will be searching through your belongings in an attempt to find any more evidence to support this arrest." He spoke rehearsed and without emotion. 

The gray fox attempted a final outburst against his binds before finding instead a smirk. "Go right ahead then, sir. I can already assure you that I'm no killer, all you're doing is wasting your time at this point." A stun pistol pressed into his back and forced him silent. 

Diego did a quick scan of the area, assessing all the immediate tops of tables and sheets. Everyone silently waited while he overturned smaller furnishings and rummaged thoroughly through drawers. It felt like we were all anticipating an excuse to drag the guy off and finally be done with it. Seemingly finding nothing, he turned to the wardrobe situated in the far corner which was present in all cabins. Upon opening it he instantly jumped backward and shouted startled. The whole room tensed up and looked to see the the pitbull woman with a wet-streaked look of horror, a gag in her mouth and a shadowy figure placing a knife at her throat. 

"Ah, technicalities. I never said anything about my brother being the killer. Now you'd all do well to undo these restraints." Sinclair declared as his ace had been revealed. He laughed at the sight of his brother pushing out of the wardrobe with my mother still held tightly hostage. My lungs shrunk as I suddenly had forgotten how to breath. 

"Otter, you will listen to his commands. Or would you have me make them myself?" The second gray fox pushed the glittering shard's edge closer to my mother's jugular, causing her to let loose a pathetic muffled whine. "Unless you'd like a third casualty on your conscience?" Dad held back my advance and shoved his fingers so hard into my shoulder it would bruise. 

While glaring at the fox Diego took a few more wary steps backward. Many guards had already turned their arms toward the new threat, yet none would be able to land any semblance of a clear shot. Even if they could nobody would have wanted to risk the retribution which may have fallen for even committing to an attempt. My vision blurred as tears began forming in the corners of my eyes, still there were no words on my tongue to utter. Still nobody moved. 

"I see. Apologies for being so abrupt without any form of proper introduction. I am Mason Delquae, and it is not a pleasure to meet you. Now you've been a terrible burden on Sinclair as of late, and I'm going going to have to insist that you free him from his binds." He said as he brought the silver dagger extending from his hand taught as if he were about to play a violin. From behind the slumped shoulder of his hostage everyone could see the ravenous power in his eyes, accompanied by the obvious star-shaped glint. 

"Dammit." Mr. Vallion yelled and threw his arms into the air palms up. "Do as he says and let him go." 

Slowly and begrudgingly the telekinetic bracer was undone with a clunk and Sinclair was pushed towards the center of the room. In his newfound freedom he rubbed at the marks on his wrists and chuckled while he took his place beside Mason. 

"You know, when only two children out of a whole litter gain a lucky star, the other less fortunate siblings tend to end up harboring a bit of envy. Being inches away from something so special due to happenstance is frustrating to say the least." Sinclair spoke calmly while reaching over to his sunglasses and sliding them on. "Isn't it poetic how harmonized we became when our differences were put aside to start a business?" 

"Stop gloating, you can save it for when there isn't guns being pointed at your head. Now I believe this train will be coming to a halt fairly soon?" Said the one hiding behind my mother. Diego stared back with a face full of contempt, and without looking away put his spell phone to the side of his head and waited for the answer. 

My legs burned to charge forward, every few seconds I had to remind myself to breath. My mother's life was tottering on a fine string where if anyone made even the slightest move it'd be over. In my pocket there was a tiny needle jutting from my claw which I formed to pretend I had any weapon at all. All the same if they laid any further harm upon her I'd strike strike as hard as anyone else here. 

These two probably thought I was stupid as well. Whichever one that spoke to me in the afternoon likely still imagined I had no knowledge of my powers or theirs. They thought I was still twiddling a silver ring and making tissues sparkly whenever I was sick. As a boring delinquent child what kind of harm could I possibly do to them? It's the same kind of thing thing whenever the punishment I'd receive for breaking rules was just a simple slap on the wrist and a finger-waggle, I was just a stupid kid. 

That probably meant something right now, didn't it? Some child crying and running towards their mother in peril is hardly something that could be compared to the actions of security. Since I was already crying there wasn't any reason to start acting either. And if I got caught? Well, I'd just be the second hostage. Maybe that was better than just my mother sobbing into her gag and waiting for her life to be ended in front of her family. I could be dangerous if I wanted, I could shank the puck out of anyone who made a move to stop me. 

Diego finally put his hand down once the order to stop the train had been relayed. While disdain was plastered all over his posture and frown, he still waited patiently at the beck and call of the two brothers. Mason was first to speak up. "Now obviously, we're going to be departing from this countryside tour quite early. If you would please say the word to clear out a path for us to leave." 

My father attempted to pull me aside with the rest of the security team, that made his grip more volatile. "No." I stared past the flooded blurry sheen over my eyes. The fear that slashed through my insides was paralyzing. "Let my mother go."

"Oh little Johnny, she'll be back safe and sound as soon as we're off the train for good. Don't you worry one bit." Sinclair replied condescendingly. It had to be a lie, they'd drag her steps from freedom and slice her in the final moment before bolting. Right now the only hope was to distract them enough to give someone a good shot. 

"Give her back!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, my voice breaking with fear. Dad had not expected me to slip from his grip so easily in my wild charge forward. Air rushed through my fur as I pulled the silver needle from my pocket and raised it. In the corner of my vision I caught Diego making a grab for me, and although I had used terror as momentum I sidestepped barely his attempt and continued charging. Sinclair got a hand on my shirt and yanked me back violently. While stumbling I saw Mason's arm twitch, his arm smashed into my chest and forced out every inch of air from within me. 

I gasped roughly, my body was already in motion where my brain was entirely stunned. With an empty palm I wrapped my fingers around his silver blade and pulled on it with the rest of my mindless might. Finally my dazed strength faltered as I was dragged to the ground and stomped upon in the abdomen, but before pain and concussion stole my vision I saw the an unstable cloud of dust erupt from where the dagger used to be. 

Darkness and a terrible radiating ache was all that was to be known while on the floor. There was an explosion of noise around me, but there was nothing to make sense of from down here. I couldn't tell if the burning in my chest was from the impacts or me just not being able to breath. All of a sudden a cough rose from the damages and rattled my entire body, wracking me with unbearable pain. Next I tried to deeply inhale, everything that hurt lit up like a blowtorch was pointed at it. 

Then I could see just a little bit. The waves of motion which dashed around the room were still too much to understand, but at least I could see. A flash splattered shadows across the walls and put together a bit more of the puzzle. Then another, stun pistols were being fired I think. The pile of green shirts on top of a fallen person was probably the guards gathering on top of one of the brothers. 

From there I was pretty sure I was taken up in my father's arms, which hurt a lot considering how quickly my body was moved. With a breathy "Ow." I communicated that fact, he became a little more gingerly in his movements and said something I couldn't really hear. At this point there was probably far too many broken ribs in my chest to care. 

And then mom was there, too. She looked absolutely ragged and was still crying even after she was safe. There was a pressure on my stinging left hand, I could barely tilt my head to see the towel which was wrapped tightly around it. Despite the inhibited circulation there was still a lot of blood staining the white cloth. I guess I kinda did grab onto a blade and yank at it. 

Although I didn't feel particularly sad, tears kept streaming down my face the same as before. Besides pain what circulated around my confused thoughts was a tiny flicker of pride. When I'm less pliable from head trauma maybe I'll feel a whole lot better about myself, but until then I just wanted to follow in Diego's footsteps and ingest copious amounts of painkillers. 

"Hey mom?" I whispered as coherently as I could. 

"Yes, honey?" 

"Can we get off on the first stop?" I bit down a cough which surely would have hurt greatly had it been given life. 

She chuckled and scratched my head. "I think that's a given right now. All you had to do was ask."

**Author's Note:**

> -Originally completed in December 13th, 2015


End file.
